Ellen and Adlore Vadnais’ second child, Charles Adlore, my uncle, was born October 11, 1911.¹  He, like his older brother George, was born in his grandmother Jennie Vadnais’ home located at then 253 Third Street in White Bear.  At the time of his birth, his 22 year old parents were renting from Adlore’s mother, Jennie.²

Father P. J. Hart baptized Charles on October 22, 1911 at St. Mary of the Lake Catholic Church.  His godparents were his aunt and uncle, Lewis and Alma (Vadnais) Heckel.³

About 6 months after Charles’ birth, the family moved to then 1309 Fourth Street, a few blocks from Jennie’s home.  Over the next few years Ellen gave birth to Lawrence Thomas, who lived just 5 months, and Henry Woodrow.^{4, 5}  Charles, George and Henry had a little over 4 years together as brothers and playmates.  Henry passed away in June of 1919.⁶

As a young child, Charles contracted whooping cough (pertussis) which resulted in his going deaf.  It would not be until the 1940s that a vaccine would be available for the disease.

I hadn’t thought about it before, but I think it’s possible that Ellen made all of the cute outfits for the boys.

Charles’ future wife, Florence Cecelia Doran, was born to 42 year old William and 31 year old Alice (Vaughn or Vaughan) Doran on August 27, 1911 in Jamestown Township, Blue Earth County, Minnesota.⁷ She was the 5^th of 8 children born to the couple.  Only 5 of her 7 siblings would live to adulthood.  Congenitally deaf, Florence spent her early years on the family dairy farm in southern Minnesota.  

In 1863 Minnesota established the Minnesota School for the Deaf (MSD) at Faribault, Minnesota, a town 56 miles from White Bear.  Children had to be at least 8 years old to be admitted.  For the majority of the students, the cause of deafness, to this day, is congenital.  At the time Charles entered school, whooping cough, was the number 10 cause of deafness.⁸ 

Both Charles and Florence began school at MSD in 1920.  They lived at the school for 9 months out of the year, Florence in the girls’ dormitory and Charles in the boys’ dormitory.  It must have been so hard for them to leave their parents and siblings at such a young age.  Supposedly Charles took Florence’s hand the day she arrived at the school and they became fast friends.

A typical school day at MSD was 4.5 hours long.  The course of study varied each year according to the grade.  At the end of every year Florence and Charles would have taken a written and oral test before being allowed to move on to the next grade.  Having seen the exams they gave in the mid 1920s, I would say that a student graduating from MSD had an education more in line with someone graduating with an associate’s degree from junior college.

Outside of the classroom students would attend lectures every Saturday and Sunday evening.  In 1925-26, some of the lectures included:  “Glimpses of Europe,” “Etiquette,” “Some of Uncle Sam’s small Enemies,” “The Story of Minnesota,” “The Rainy Day Railroad War,” and “The Merchant of Venice,” to name a few.

MSD was, for the most part, a self-sustaining operation with a power plant, a farm that produced all of the fruits and vegetables,  a print shop that provided all of the printed materials, a tailor shop where the cadet uniforms were made, a sewing and dressmaking department, a domestic science department, a bake shop, the Sloyd room where students produced, among other things, hair brushes, combs and tooth brushes, and a cabinet shop which seemed to build anything and everything made out of wood such as benches, bookcases, chairs, tables and dressers all the way down to coat hangers, crutches and window sticks.  Outside of the power plant, over their many years at MSD, Charles and Florence had the opportunity to learn some of these trades.

Charles was quite active in baseball, football and the Hi-Y club, a contraction of “High School” and “Young Men’s Christian Association.”  I know that Florence enjoyed dancing.  It is mentioned in later years that she won a Charleston contest while at Faribault.⁹  I don’t know of any of her other extra-curricular activities.

Here are a few other pictures of Charles during his school years at MSD.

In May 1932, Florence and Charles, both 21 years old, graduated from high school at MSD.  There were 11 students in their graduating class, 7 women and 4 men.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Thanks for visiting, come back soon,
Cynthia

© 2024 Copyright by Cynthia Vadnais, All Rights Reserved

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Footnotes for Charles Adlore Vadnais and Florence Cecelia Doran