Vera Lloyd Presbyterian Home 

               & Family Services, Inc.

 

 

 

 

 

        

                               

       

                                      

Our History

This is the old house where Lulu began caring for children. It is located across from the old mill in Monticello 

Vera Lloyd Presbyterian Home had its beginning in 1910, when Lulu Williamson, an active Presbyterian, wife, and mother, led in the establishment of the Associated Charities in Monticello, Arkansas.  This met the need for a day nursery to care for children of women who worked in the Monticello Cotton Mill.  Although largely confined to a wheelchair, Mrs. Williamson took on the daily supervision of the nursery.

Only a year or so later, the night marshal of Monticello found twin baby girls, frail and emaciated, abandoned in a battered suitcase beside the railroad track.  The twins were taken to the day nursery for emergency care.  Because the parents of the babies were unknown, the twins were ineligible for admission into any orphanage in that part of the state.  As a result, the day nursery took on full-time care of the twins, and Mrs. Williamson named them Mary and Martha.

Over the next thirteen years, other children came to live at the day nursery because their parents, due to sickness or poverty, were unable to care for them.  The facility was expanded, but still there was not enough room for the children who needed a home.  As other volunteers lost interest, Mrs. Williamson found herself running the home single-handedly, recruiting volunteers and staff and soliciting financial support.

Miss Annie B. Wells, a lifelong friend of Lulu Williamson, died in 1915, leaving 1,059 acres of timberland on the outskirts of Monticello, to be used for needy children.  In 1922, Mrs. Williamson unsuccessfully petitioned the Synod of Arkansas of the Presbyterian Church in the United States to take over her work and establish a Presbyterian children's home.  In May of 1923, Pine Bluff Presbytery agreed to take under its care the permanent members of the day nursery, and construction was begun on a two-story dormitory on 50 acres of the Annie B. Wells estate.  In October of 1923, the Synod of Arkansas relented and assumed control of the children's home.

A bequest of $22,000 left by Miss Vera Lloyd of Marianna, Arkansas, for the purpose of establishing an orphanage in Arkansas, was turned over to the home with the stipulation that the home bear her name.  Mrs. Williamson had found through her work with children that many who needed a home and care were not orphans, and from the start of negotiations with Synod had insisted that the word "orphanage" not be used in the name of the home.  Consequently, in 1924, the home was named the "Vera Lloyd Presbyterian Home for Children."  The funds from Miss Lloyd's bequest were used in 1925 to double the capacity of the original building.  That building was destroyed by fire in 1930, but by 1932 had been replaced by the building still in use today, Williamson House.

Wells Hall