Ninety years ago, two very different young men, and the still-young Moose fraternal order they led, plunged headfirst into a grand experiment in social welfare; a ‘safety net’ woven not by government, but by responsible working men mutually pledged to house, clothe, feed and educate their brothers’ children— and to teach them a trade. Some in power were skeptical, but Jim Davis and Rodney Brandon were determined to bring forth the . . .

Birth of a Child City

By KURT WEHRMEISTER with ROBERT ZAININGER

It was against his better judgment that the Vice President of the United States stepped inside a huge, oven like, rented circus tent on an abandoned farm, an hour’s train ride west of Chicago, on, Sunday, July 27, 1913.

Thomas Marshall, sworn in just four months before with new President Woodrow Wilson, had been buttonholed by Ralph Donges, a former legal aide of Wilson’s, to speak at the dedication of a home for fatherless children being started by the audacious, swiftly growing national fraternal organization known as the Loyal Order of Moose—over which Donges was presiding that year as Supreme Dictator. (The title of the fraternity's presiding officer was not changed to Supreme Governor until 1940.)

“I detest orphanages,” Marshall had irritatedly responded to Donges in initially trying to get out of the assignment. “When I was Governor of Indiana I was forced in the course of duty to visit a number of orphanages. I thought they were terrible places, and I won’t help you lay the cornerstone for another one.”

Donges, then 38 and a lawyer from Camden, NJ, reassured the Vice President. “It will never be that kind of orphanage,” he said, referring to the dreary urban warehouses of abandoned children then common in the U.S.; places that got their income via donations from couples who would come to view children before selecting one to adopt.

That’s not at all what the Moose were planning, Donges insisted: “It will be a home and school for the children of our deceased members.” Marshall had reluctantly agreed, but when he stepped off the train at what formerly had been two adjoining farms, what he saw was unimpressive: a decent enough farmhouse near the road—the home of the 31-year-old Superintendent, Rodney Brandon, and his wife—but just a few other ramshackle buildings. But there were also 11 scrubbed, gamely smiling children—ranging in age from Walter Thompson of Muscatine, IA, age 12, down to two-year-old Robert Lee of Wayne County, IN. Each wore a specially-lettered sash: “First Children at Mooseheart”—for that was the name conceived for the place earlier in the year by another prominent Moose member, Ohio Congressman John Lentz.

These 11 children were the center of attention for a surprisingly huge crowd of several thousand inside the stifling tent. Viewing the scene, Marshall (according to a writer who spoke with Donges decades later) “skeptically wondered if he were watering the elephants for a Moose publicity circus.” But he gazed upon the 11 kids—who now, after all, had a home—and declared, with the most hopeful tone he could summon: “Thank God, here in this Middle West, here on this most sacred day, humanity has again proved its right to be called the children of the Most High; has again reached out its hand in love and loyalty to the needy brother, and has disclosed not only the right, but the duty of this great Order to exist.”

A list of those sitting and listening to Marshall in that tent that day reveals an intriguing, and illuminating, fact: James J. Davis—credited ever since as the Founder of Mooseheart—was not present. The record doesn’t say for sure, but he was likely on the road, either on the train to, or already in, Cincinnati, greeting incoming members for the next day’s opening of the 1913 International Convention.

Rodney Brandon, on the other hand, was present at Mooseheart as he had been more often than not since the spring, attending to all the details of the occasion.

Each man’s situation that day was characteristic.

Indeed, the nature of the relationship of Jim Davis and Rodney Brandon is essential to understanding how both the creation of Mooseheart, and the growth of the Moose fraternity, came about. The historical record, and comments from the very few people still left who knew both men, reveal a fascinating partnership. Davis and Brandon, who met in Anderson, IN in December 1906 (when the latter, working both in newspapers and insurance, was enrolled as a charter member of a new Lodge there), were quite dissimilar men. By all accounts they were never personally close in all the 41 years they would know one another. But it was their mutual respect, and acknowledgement of their disparate abilities, during the period from 1906 to 1913 that truly created both the modern Moose fraternity, and Mooseheart.

Davis, the Welsh-immigrant steel-mill worker (and later union organizer) from Pennsylvania, was a charismatic salesman, plain-spoken with little formal education. Brandon, eight years younger, was quiet, organized, detail-oriented and erudite, having been schooled up through three years at Indiana University.

Davis could (and did, time and again) step off trains in small towns all across North America, get together a meeting of 50 men, and in less than a week institute a new Moose Lodge—wholly on the strength of his own personality, his powers of persuasion—and one great idea. Brandon could (and did) keep this wildly mushrooming fraternity organized, and its bills paid, as its Supreme Secretary working out of an office in Anderson.

Davis’ “one great idea,” of course, is why he is duly credited as Mooseheart’s founder. In his youth, he’d seen men die in the steel mills, and their widows and children thrown into destitution. He agreed in October 1906 to tackle the job of reviving the foundering 18-year-old Moose order, on the basis of the idea of a “Moose Institute,” a place funded by workingmen’s dues, to house, clothe and feed the man’s widow; and to both educate the man’s children and train them in a trade. Taking his cut at $1 per new member minus expenses, Davis’ success in six years of tirelessly crisscrossing the continent was astounding: from less than 250 Moose members in fall 1906 to nearly 400,000 by the end of 1912.

For all their differences, Davis and Brandon of course had shared beliefs. First, as partly expressed through their affiliation with Theodore Roosevelt’s so-called “Progressivist” wing of the Republican Party, they shared a burning belief in social welfare for the working class, not via government but through pooled private resources—through fraternity. Secondly, once a course of action was set, they shared an impatience to get it accomplished.

By 1911, Davis, Brandon, and the cadre of political leaders and businessmen they had recruited together, realized it was time to make good on Davis’ idea of a Moose Institute. A Moose Institute Board of Trustees, having been appointed by the fraternity’s Supreme Council, considered and visited several centrally located Midwest communities throughout 1911 and ’12 to hear proposals on a site. Several cities offered attractive cash incentives, and the tendency was apparently strong to accept a civic gift of 1,000 acres at a reduced price near Anderson, 50 miles northeast of Indianapolis—and to keep Moose headquarters there. But the Trustees finally decided to choose a site based solely on its quality—its topography, quality of soil for farming, adjacency to a river and proximity to a large city.

In early fall 1912, Brandon and a Supreme Council committee visited six Illinois and Indiana sites including three in the Chicago area: in Waukegan on Lake Michigan, in Elgin northwest of Chicago, and finally, an available site north of Aurora, 40 miles west-southwest of the city consisting of two parcels—the 750-acre Brookline farm and its buildings near the western bank of the Fox River, plus adjacent acreage to the west and north owned by two other families—1,023 acres in total. Meeting in Chicago on Dec. 14, the Institute Trustees and the Supreme Council selected this site. Negotiations with all parties took place in January and February 1913, with final purchase expense totaling $264,000 and possession taken March 1. On Feb. 1, another joint meeting of the Council and Trustees unanimously approved Ohio Congressman John Lentz’s idea for a name for the new Institute: Mooseheart.

In the January 1913 issue of Call of the Moose, announcing the selection of the site, Trustee E.J. Henning placed the best possible “spin” on the fact that the property had very few facilities: “We expect that the potato patch will be our gymnasium, a cornfield our campus and a cow pasture our running track.” Henning also noted the obvious: “Someone must be found big enough, wise enough, charitable enough and humane enough to take charge of building so great an enterprise.”

At the Cincinnati Convention that immediately followed the July 27 dedication, the fraternity’s leadership identified that man: its Supreme Secretary, Rodney Brandon.

Brandon was already technically in charge of the business of the new Mooseheart campus, in his role as Secretary/Treasurer of the Institute Trustees, newly re-dubbed the Mooseheart Governors (with Davis now installed as its Chairman). But after the Convention in early August he returned by rail to Mooseheart as its first de-facto superintendent, taking residence with his wife Harriette in one of the two existing frame houses near the east front. (The other, larger one became a girls’ dormitory, christened Aid Hall.)

Brandon brought with him a close associate from Anderson, Dr. J.A. Rondthaler, a Presbyterian minister who had helped him organize the Junior Order of Moose in 1911. Rondthaler would become Mooseheart’s first dean of students, heading both its academic and residential departments; and, of course, its first chaplain. Rondthaler was also presiding officer of the “Mooseheart Assembly,” a daily, after-supper meeting of teachers, caregivers and students in which every person of every age had one vote— the dean presumably retaining veto authority.

Short on textbooks and most other supplies during that first 1913-14 school year—as new admissions swelled the population from 11 to around 50—Rondthaler and three female teachers resorted largely to reading aloud to students from the Chicago daily newspapers and discussing them.

Brandon had quickly rehired R.R. Luman, the man who had served as farm superintendent for Brookline’s previous owner; and Brookline farmhand E.T. Lane as “commissary steward.” He gratefully accepted the part-time nursery and landscaping help of J.A. Young, Aurora’s city forester.

The Mooseheart Governors had quickly commissioned a consulting architect and outside contractor to design and supervise construction of a single-story, railroad-track side structure to serve as administration building, train station and post office (it remains Mooseheart’s post office 90 years later); and a much larger, three-story dormitory to house more than 100 boys, dubbed Loyalty Hall. (After serving as Supreme Lodge headquarters from roughly 1920 until 1956, this building had multiple uses until being renovated as a training and lodging facility in 1998.)

But it wasn’t just buildings that Mooseheart needed—it was street foundations, heating tunnels, water and sewer pipes, a power plant and electric lines. Brandon quickly convinced the Governors that a resident professional engineer was needed to supervise planning and construction of all of that. Robert Havlik of Detroit was quickly interviewed and hired in October. After more than a half-dozen intensely busy years, Havlik would gradually shift into duties as Mooseheart’s director of vocational education.

Brandon also quickly realized that the burdens of essentially creating a small town from scratch left no time to run the office of a growing fraternal organization. He assumed Mooseheart’s superintendency full-time in January 1914, turning over his duties as Supreme Secretary to Wm. Trickett Giles of Baltimore. (Brandon would resume the Supreme Secretary’s post in 1918, after new Superintendent Matthew P. Adams was well established.)

The first week of August 1918 was momentous for Mooseheart, as it marked its fifth anniversary of existence. The eastern 200 or so acres resembled much more a new suburban neighborhood than a dilapidated farm. Its entrance drive was not rutted mud but paved concrete—as was the brand-new, coast-to-coast Lincoln Highway (which Jim Davis had made sure was routed right in front of the campus!). Mooseheart’s innovative program of mixing academic education with vocational training was being emulated in schools across the nation (including a brand-new Nebraska institution called Boys Town, whose Father Edward Flanagan had visited the Moose facility with keen interest the year before!). The campus, now boasting more than 500 students and 78 buildings, including the just-completed Assembly Hall/Auditorium, hosted the fraternity’s 30th International Convention. Invited back to speak to the assemblage—this time beneath a gracefully arched, sculpted ceiling, and not a circus big-top—was Vice President Thomas Marshall. Of course, he recalled his sweaty collar and healthy skepticism in the torrid tent of five years and a week before—on July 27, 1913.

“Five years after that hour,” Marshall said, “Let me tell you that when I spoke, there was a reservation in my mind . . . I felt that, like many of the good ideas and good devices of humankind, it was only a circus performance and when the tent went down, the show would soon be over.

“Thank God that today,” Marshall continued, “I can stand before you and say that . . . the age of miracles has not passed. All that I hoped for, longed for, and prayed for on that interesting occasion five years ago has come to pass at Mooseheart. Thank God for miracles!”

All of the full-color images used in this story are borrowed from the extensive collection of historical Mooseheart postcards maintained by John Spence of Del City, OK, a 1958 Mooseheart graduate and a Past International President of the Moose Legion. Our gratitude and thanks to John.

It is James J. Davis (right) who is duly honored as Mooseheart’s founder, for he conceived the Child City concept—and tirelessly sold hundreds of thousands of men on the idea. But it was Rodney Brandon (left) who built the place, guiding the campus’ planning, construction, staffing and program for its first three years.

U.S. Vice President Thomas Marshall was recruited to speak at Mooseheart’s dedication ceremony on July 27, 1913. Five years later, speaking to the 1918 International Convention in the new Roosevelt Auditorium, the Vice President returned and confessed that he’d been very skeptical as he spoke beneath a circus tent on that hot day in 1913. “I felt that . . . it was only a circus performance and when the tent went down, the show would be over. Thank God that today...all that I hoped for on that interesting occasion has come to pass at Mooseheart.”

The main buildings of the Brookline Farm, on the west side of the Fox River between Aurora and Batavia, IL, essentially as Supreme Secretary Rodney Brandon found them in the fall of 1912. On his recommendation, the Supreme Council voted in Chicago on Dec. 14 to purchase it for the new “Moose Institute,” along with the neighboring Van Nortwick farm to the west and north.

What is now Minnesota Home on the Mooseheart campus was originally dubbed Purity Hall; the high-school age girls who lived there upon its completion in 1915 began their mornings with calisthenics.

By the time this aerial photo was taken in 1933, many of today’s established Mooseheart landmarks were in place, notably the Campanile at lower right. With the Depression setting in, only the football stadium would be built between this point and the end of World War II.

The center court of the five-building Baby Village complex was originally built in 1922 with a formal concrete fountain (top); by 1940 (below) the fountain had been replaced by a much more practical (and fun!) wading pool.

Brandon brought J.A. Rondthaler (left), an elderly college professor and ordained Presbyterian minister, with him from Indiana in summer 1913 to begin Mooseheart’s educational and residential program. On Nov. 1 of that year, he hired a young engineer from Detroit, Robert Havlik (right), to plan and supervise construction.

The fraternity’s Nine O’Clock Ceremony was first depicted in oil for distribution to Lodges in the early 1930s, with a Mooseheart child saying a bedtime prayer with the Campanile tower shown outside the window; the painting was updated in the early 1960s, now the House of God is depicted at dusk outside the window. (Ironically, the positioning of both artworks is more idealized than realistic: The tyke at top looks to be about four, hence would have lived at Baby Village, nowhere near the Campanile; in the later art the view is very close to what one might see out a bedroom window in Baby Village’s Schuylkill building—but the boy looks to be perhaps seven—too old to live there!)

By the 1940s Mooseheart’s front entrance, off Illinois Route 31 (formerly Lincoln Highway) had been paved for many years and was graced with mature trees. The concrete column at the entrance had been a gift from the Class of 1929.