Balfour Orphanage, Black Mountain, North Carolina

This is the orphanage that Mary Elizabeth Postell Ralston was sent to in 1910, along with her sisters Margaret and Maud. The orphanage was established by Dr. Robert Perry Smith, a Presbyterian minister who saw the need for an orphanage as he travelled through the mountains. It started out as a cabin, but Dr. Smith convinced Lucy Smith Hare to comb the mountains, on horseback, searching for children whose parents had died. She found many children and by 1910 little cabin was too small so this home was built in Balfour/Hendersonville.



Mary Postell and her sisters were placed in the orphanage by their mother, Josephine Robinson Postell, after their father was killed. Josie was 32 at the time and had 6 children. Lola, age 18, and Sam, age 13, were not eligible to go into the orphanage so went to work. I'm guessing that they threw in their lot with their mother, to survive as a small family of three. The three younger girls went into the orphanage but the baby, Homer, went to one of Grant's four sisters.

When Josie put the girls into the orphanage she fixed it that none of the other relatives could take them out. She told them it was just temporary, until she could establish a home for them all. In the meantime she was living in or near Asheville, North Carolina, working as a seamstress.
I would love to know if she worked for herself, for a shop or on the Biltmore Estate.

Where ever it was, in July 1911, Josie had an appendicitis attack and was taken for emergency surgery to the Biltmore Hospital in the middle of Biltmore Village. The Biltmore hospital was new and very modern for those times. Modern as it was, however, Josie died on the operating table at the tender age of 33. Peritonitis had set in, but I'm also inclined to think she'd lost heart when Grant died. They had been married since she was 12, yes twelve!, years old. Mountain girls married young, though even that was a bit young for Josie's parents and they never were very close to Grant. Perhaps that's one reason Josie did not turn to her family for help when Grant died.

In September 2009 our family here in England and cousin Mignon Mandon, who lives in Asheville, visited the former Biltmore Hospital, which is now owned by architect Robert Griffin who has marked the original rooms with different coloured wood on the floor and is preserving the heritage of the former hospital. He showed us artifacts that he has collected and was very eager to take down Josie's story. It is, after all, these stories that make any dates and data meaningful to those who come after.

After Josie died nothing changed immediately. Lola and Sam kept working, Homer continued to be raised by Grant's sister, and Mary, Margaret and Maud remained in Balfour orphanage. Seven months later, however, Maudie got sick.

Grandma Mary and Aunt Margaret told me what happened when Maud got sick. We were all together in Aunt Lola's apartment - 94 Fabyan Place, Newark, New Jersey - and it was summer of 1965. Aunt Lola had laid down upon her bed, suffered a massive heart attack and died. Uncle Henry Denzinger had not reported it. He wasn't right in the mind. I don't know what he had, it certainly wasn't Alzheimers and he lived on until 1981, but he wasn't right. Someone reported Lola dead. Someone notified Grandma, in Georgia and Aunt Margaret, in Canada. They both met in Newark to see to Uncle Henry and to see to the estates, such as it was. We lived in Lincoln Park NJ and often visited Aunt Lola, so we were naturally there as well.

One night they told us about Maud. They said that she had gotten very ill with bilious fever. The woman who ran the orphanage, whom they described as an evil crazy woman, neglected to call the doctor but instead dosed Maud with quinine. Maud only worsened and finally the doctor was called. When he arrived he said they gave Maud enough quinine to kill a horse, and it did, indeed kill little Maudie. Grandma never got over that. I asked what happened to the bad woman and Grandma said she was put in an institution. But that was probably a tale dressed up for childish ears. Grandma did that, quite often.

In 2008 my daughter Alexandra and I went to the current location of the orphanage. Now it's is called the Presbyterian Home for Children in Black Mountain, North Carolina. When we got there the sun hadn't yet set and we went to the front door to the main building to see if we could speak to someone. The door wasn't locked so we stepped inside to see if someone was available, but clearly everything was shut and the lights were off.

We don't give up easily, however. So we walked to one of the out buildings where we could see a lot of children knowing that there would be adults there as well. Sure enough a man came out and listened while I explained that my grandmother had been in the orphanage when it was first founded and that we were interested in any information they could provide about that time. The man called out a young woman and she very kindly took us to the main building, turned on the lights and took us to their archive room.

Unfortunately the records they kept on hand stopped just short of going back to Grandma's day. There was nothing there about her or Margaret. Nothing about Maud. I didn't say anything about Maud's death - I wanted to keep it all friendly and I was glad I did because the girl gave us a tour around the place. We went into the main dining room and there we saw huge portraits of the founder and his wife, all smiles and graces. I glared at them. It was the least (really it was the least) I could do for poor little Maud. Grandma stayed in the orphanage until she was 18, going on to become one of the teachers there. When she was 18 she married Lee Ralston and left Balfour forever.

Now I am back in England. However, it's my understanding that the early records of the orphanage are archived somewhere in North Carolina. If anyone has time and fancy, perhaps they can be located and we can all find out exactly what killed Maud.

Many thanks to cousin Chandra Hartness Ozemont for the wonderful orphanage picture!

When I Was a Child

by Mary Elizabeth Postell Ralston
(probably written in 1976)

When I was a little child,
I loved my mama and I loved my dad.
But somehow they had to die,
And that left me broken-hearted and very sad.

My road has been rugged and narrow,
Full of loneliness and much sorrow.
Yet I trod along, walking among the rocks and in the sand,
Holding onto an unseen Hand.

This Hand is tender and strong,
Lets me know I have a Father,
He’s always near, and that I’m never alone.
He’s my kith and He’s my kin;
He’s my father, mother, and He’s my friend.

Along my way I met a young man.
He said, “Let me walk by your side.”
I looked up in his lovely face and took him by the hand.
My Friend said, “I will join you as man and wife.
You must travel together as long as there is life.”

On our way, we traveled through the land
Walking on rock and then in the sand.
In the process of time we met our children.
They each were lovely, tender, and sweet –
Little babes growing up around our feet.

Now they all are married and in homes of their own,
Walking, working, playing, and singing their song.
There are glad days and sad days with their bloom and their blight,
Their fullness of sunshine and sorrowful night,
All bound up in a sheaf which the unseen Hand holds tight.

He and I are almost to the end of our road,
Looking at the golden sunset,
Still carrying our load,
Still holding to his hand,
Anticipating our eternal home over in Glory Land.

My Sister Maggie and I

Once upon a time when we were young and lithe,
We wandered up the mountain streams and
Down over the hills and up the mountain sides,
Talking, laughing, and never a frown.
My sister Maggie and I.

We fished in the creek, waded in the creek,
Splashed and played in the creek.
When Mother called we hastened home in wet clothes,
Dripping hair and rosy of cheek.
My sister Maggie and I.

Our Mother would say, “My O!”
How she did fume and how she did scold!
She changed our clothes, dried our feet,
and warmed our toes.
My sister Maggie and I.

Mother set us down in a chair,
“You sit there until I say get up, do you hear?”
Yes, Mother, we heard what you said.
We became so sleepy we asked to go to bed.
My sister Maggie and I.

Our sister and our brother came by laughing, saying
“Now you girls should have a good, sound threshing!”
With a loving mama we were blessed.
She looked so sweet; we felt so dry and warmly dressed.
My sister Maggie and I.

Wonderful were our childhood days,
With our ups and downs and all our ways.
Home sweet home, with a father and a mother and a sister and a brother,
All going our various ways and loving each other.
My sister Maggie and I.

Quarling, kissing, slapping, and running,
This our home was a happy place and sometimes things were funny.
Well those days are a long-time gone,
Leaving us with our sweet memories and a melodious song.
My sister Maggie and I.


P.S. Way back in 1908 & 1909 we lived in the Nantahala Mountains of North Carolina and across the Snowbird Mountains on a creek, named Panther Creek, in Graham County. Our post office address was Japan, North Carolina (now covered by the Fontana Dam). Our dad worked at this time at the Whiting (Sawmill) Lumber Company. Pop tended the gauging of the two big steam boilers and also repaired anything needed. When we carried his hot dinner that Mother prepared for him in a tin dinner bucket, he always met us with a smile, a hug, and a kiss. He had brown eyes, dark wavy hair, was 5’11” tall, and weighed around 168 pounds. He was 42 years old.

Hope you enjoy reading this crudely written poem. It came from my heart and memories of yesterdays. Papa died in 1909, May 19, leaving mother with six children: Lula, Octavis, Mary (Mamie), Margaret (Maggie), Maudie Cecil, and John Homer Postell. Mother died two years later, July 12, 1911. We orphans never went hungry or ragged, and never lacked a roof over our heads. All are gone on to the other side except Maggie and me.

Mary P. Ralston
(probably written in May 1976)