The Story of the Tolland County Temporary Home

“The Children in the Big Yellow House”
The Story of the Tolland County Temporary Home at Vernon Center

Through the close of the 19th century, each town was responsible for care of its poor. Children of destitute parents were dealt with in various ways, most commonly through the family’s placement in the local almshouse. Eventually the state legislature established a system of County Temporary Homes in Connecticut.

The Tolland County Temporary Home, started in Andover, soon moved to Vernon Center where it was home to nearly 700 children over the next 68 years.

For the past five years Chris and Cheryl Klemmer have been researching the State’s County Temporary Homes program which operated in Connecticut from 1883-1955. They will provide an overview of the Tolland County Home program: how children were placed there, what life was typically like for a County Home child, the selection of the Home’s staff and how the group fit in to the local community. Learn what happened after the house with its 27 rooms, its playground and its school, all went silent in July 1955.

The program is free and open to the public. Donations are always welcome. Light refreshments will be served.

For further information, please call the Society at (860) 875-4326 or email vernonhs@sbcglobal.net or visit their webpage at VernonHistoricalSoc.org (https://vernonhistoricalsoc.org/).