I spent 16 months at Camp Tracey Children's Home. As a camp alumni, when talking to most people, it's easier to just refer to it as boarding school. It makes it sound nicer than it was, and less explanation is needed. I know that most of the people who worked there meant well, but the methods employed there were taken after the Lester Roloff's home in Texas, and were a bit extreme in some areas. I have to say, we did not have things quite as bad as those kids did, but did was far from a picnic.
The first 11 months were bad, but then we got a new dorm mother. In the last 5 months I was there, I realized that being there was the lesser of 3 evils in my life. I was always ahead in school, so she let me spend most of my non-schooldays in the kitchen with her. I learned to "put up" vegetables, make pepper jelly and fruit preserves, and how to cook for an army all by myself when I need to. Because I was on extra kitchen time, and the only senior in the camp school, I had a lot of short interval opportunities to enjoy being in the country. I'd go almost every morning to help care for the horses if I didn't have school. I also got to travel with the singing group and sang competitively at the state competition.
I graduated from school in May and expected to go home, but it wasn't meant to be, so I spent all summer there. I stayed by her side the entire summer. When the girls went to the fields to pick vegetables, she and I stayed behind many days and put up what they'd brought back the day before and prepared lunch and dinner alone or just a small group of other girls. I don't know what I would do without her that last few months I was there. She changed my entire perspective on my life and my being there. I found a profile for her on Linkedin recently and am waiting to see if I hear back from her. If she's still living, she's likely nearly 90 years old now.