What was the Berachah Industrial Home for the Redemption of Erring Girls in Arlington?

On the edge of the University of Texas at Arlington campus is a cemetery of about 80 graves. The graves are marked by small, flat tombstones. Most of the graves are those of infants. Many of the tombstones bear only a first name. Some bear only the word “infant” and a number.

The cemetery is the most visible remnant of the Berachah Industrial Home for the Redemption of Erring Girls. Berachah was a rescue home: a social institution that was common early in the 20th century during the Third Great Awakening. This was a period of religious activism when reformers numbered among their missions (1) shutting down gambling houses, saloons and brothels and (2) “redeeming” young women who had “fallen from grace” — especially prostitutes and more especially prostitutes who were pregnant.

The task of “redeeming” such “fallen women” fell to rescue homes. The Rev. James Toney Upchurch founded three of them.

Upchurch was born in 1870 near Waco. After joining the Methodist church, Upchurch began conducting religious services in jails and in the Reservation, which was Waco’s vice district.

In 1892 Upchurch married Maggie May Adams, and together they ministered to “fallen women,” especially pregnant prostitutes. In 1894 the Upchurches founded the Berachah Rescue Home in Waco. (“Berachah” is Hebrew for “blessing”; 2 Chronicles 20:26).

But religious leaders in Waco disapproved of the Upchurches’ efforts to redeem prostitutes, especially Reverend Upchurch’s policy of insisting that prostitutes not put their babies up for adoption.

So, the Upchurches moved to Dallas, where in 1899 they opened a rescue home in Oak Cliff.

But by 1901 Upchurch looked to the west and had a new vision. Both Dallas and Fort Worth had vice districts. A rescue home located midway could take in fallen women of both cities and yet, in those horse-and-buggy days, harbor those women well away from the temptations of the vice districts: Hell’s Half Acre in Fort Worth and Frogtown and Boggy Bayou in Dallas.

Upchurch began to buy land just outside the Arlington city limits. By 1903, Upchurch opened his Berachah Industrial Home for the Redemption of Erring Girls.

The mission of the home, according to Upchurch, was to restore “fallen women” to “honorable lives.”

In Arlington Upchurch continued his policy of insisting that unwed mothers keep their baby.

In time, the Berachah home grew to 67 acres. The home had an infirmary, nursery, laundry, tabernacle, chapel, dormitories, school, dining hall and print shop.

Residents maintained an orchard and garden, canned their own fruits and vegetables. Residents also kept chickens and cows and brought in extra revenue by picking cotton on area farms.

The word “Industrial” in the name of the home was perhaps overblown. The home had a small wood-frame “factory” where residents made handkerchiefs to learn a skill and to produce income for the home.

Life at the home was regimented.

Upon arrival, girls dropped their jewelry into a wooden keg. Residents wore their hair pulled back in a bun.

The home did not allow residents to use caffeine, tobacco or alcohol, to eat pork, dance, swim with males or use the telephone on Sundays.

The home provided room and board and kept the residents busy: religious instruction, vocational training (printing, domestic service, nursing, stenography, sewing), school and work. Residents were taught how to care for their newborn child.

In addition to prostitutes, the Berachah home enrolled victims of domestic abuse, abandonment, incest and rape — all viewed as “fallen” despite their victimization.

When a girl enrolled in the home, she or her parents signed a contract that required the girl to remain at the home for one year after the birth of her child.

The home claimed that 75 percent of its residents who stayed “any length of time” became “redeemed.”

Residents who did not stay at the home a full year were considered to be “dishonorably discharged” back into a life of sin.

But other residents were contented. One Berachah girl wrote, “When I first saw Berachah I thought it was the most beautiful place I had ever seen. After being told it was a place where broken hearts and blighted lives were made happy, I rejoiced.”

By 1924, the home had admitted 1,321 girls and their babies.

But the home closed in 1935. Researchers have cited these factors: Upchurch’s failing health, the Great Depression, and competition from the Edna Gladney home.

In 1950, James Toney Upchurch died in Dallas.

In 1963, Arlington State College (now the University of Texas at Arlington) and the city of Arlington acquired the Berachah campus.

Today only the Berachah Cemetery remains, its infants’ graves in rows, like some eternal nursery.

Mike Nichols blogs about Fort Worth history at www.hometownbyhandlebar.com.