EASTON, Pa | By Rudy Miller | For lehighvalleylive.com
Joe Gonzalez remembers his ominous arrival at the Children’s Home of Easton.
He was 13. No one had much good to say about the Wilson Borough facility. But his mother could no longer take care of him and his brother, so he acknowledged this was the best alternative.
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At the Children’s Home, he found what he couldn’t find inside the walls of his childhood home on Easton’s South Side. He found adults who cared for him. He found a place where he could just be a kid rather than caretaker of his family. He found a new home.
“It was the best thing that ever happened to my life,” said the 75-year-old who now lives in Williams Township.
Gonzalez spent five years in the Children’s Home. After getting his college degree and teaching for a year, he found his way back and spent decades as the Children’s Home’s program director.
On Saturday, he joined more than 100 people whose lives turned out better because of the time they spent in the home. The program for alumni celebrates the Children’s Home’s 140th anniversary.
“My biggest thing is — this is their home. We’re not trying to be an institution,” said Executive Director Anita Jo Paukovits.
The Children’s Home was founded as an orphanage by a group of churchgoing women in 1885. It evolved to largely accept children who have trouble at home and need a place to stay, Paukovits said.
Frank Mento was one of those kids. He was a 7-year-old self-confessed troublemaker when he was placed there, away from his eight brothers and sisters at his home in Philadelphia.
The 69-year-old who now lives in Bethlehem Township grew so attached to the home that when he was allowed to return to his family in Philly, he begged to stay.
After leaving the home at 18, he worked at Victaulic, and later Mack Trucks, and finally returned to the Children’s Home as a do-it-all fill-in counselor, recreation leader, maintenance worker and van driver.
He and his ex-wife (who also worked at the Children’s Home) have fostered between 50 and 100 children over the years.
“I wanted to give kids the opportunity that I had,” Mento said.
Mento and Gonzalez aren’t the only success stories, Paukovits said.
Children’s Home alumni have become a math professor, a Philadelphia policewoman, a fireman, an electric company supervisor, an entrepreneur — all of whom credit the Children’s Home with helping them find self-sufficiency and self-respect.
Saturday afforded them an opportunity to reminisce, Paukovits said.
“This is a good place. It really is. And we all have stories, that’s for sure,” she said.
Mento regrets he couldn’t be there, although he had an excuse: his daughter was getting married in California. If there were a way to squeeze both events into his calendar, he would have done it.
“I thought long and hard about it. Trust me,” he said.
Saturday’s 140th anniversary and alumni reunion included a lunch, guest speakers, the opening of a time capsule and dessert at the facility at 2000 S. 25th St. in Wilson Borough.
Check out this video for more information about the history of the Children’s Home of Easton.
