Picture Tuesday - Come on In!

Every Tuesday we feature pictures from Hope Cottage, Dallas' oldest nonprofit, nonsectarian adoption agency.  Last week we featured pictures from the "front porch".  This week we want to welcome you inside Hope Cottage and see what life was like in the early days!

An early nursery at Hope Cottage.  Twenty four hour nursing staff looked
after their precious charges.



One of the original cribs from Hope Cottage used for
newborns.  It is about the size of  today's
NICU unit.

One nice thing about being, according to historical records, the only adoption agency in Dallas at the time, we got a great deal of press.  Below is a photo from the Dallas World newspaper.  Unfortunately, the scrapbook in which these old clippings were mounted, seems to have suffered a bit of damage.  From what I can tell, this picture ran during the early 1920's.  Note the sidebar "Christmas is Not Christmas Without Children in the Home." 



The article below ran November 21, 1921.  The headline reads "Hope Cottage Only Salvation of Homeless Waifs".  Forty nine babies lived at Hope Cottage and times were dire.  County Comissioners thought $30 a month per baby for milk was too much to spend!  The County actually spent more to save hogs and cotton than it would spend on milk for the babies of Hope Cottage. 

1921 seems to have been a very good year, publicity wise for Hope Cottage and it needed to be.  The actual Hope Cottage was over crowded, leaky with torn screens, little heat and was situated next to a horse farm (think manure, flies, Dallas in AUGUST?).  All the publicity brought to light the fact that Hope Cottage needed a new home and fast!  By 1922 thanks to generous donors, we were living in what was to be our home for the next fifty years, but that is another story for another time.

Hope Cottage is the oldest non profit, non sectarian adoption agency in Dallas.  Since 1918 Hope Cottage has been building strong families through education, counseling and adoption services.  

If you have questions about adoption, please call Hope Cottage at 214.526.8721.


If you are a woman facing an unwanted pregnancy and would like to talk to someone about adoption, please call Hope Cottage at 1.800.944.4464 or 214.404.4546.