Orphanages are notorious for cold, impersonal treatment and sometimes even physical punishment. ISSCS was no exception. The first keeper was Mrs. Virginia C. Ohr. In 1877 Mrs. Ohr was accused of viciously beating a ten year old boy named Willie Schott and stood trial for this incident.
On July 4th Willie Schott's mother was visiting the orphanage. Willie asked for permission to go home with his mother for the afternoon, and Mrs. Ohr told him he could not go with her. Willie began crying and could not stop. Mrs. Ohr became impatient with him and ordered him to stop. When he could not stop she took him into the basement and beat him with a switch. She claimed the switch was very slender. A janitor testified that the switch was about the diameter of a pencil.
Mrs. Schott testified that she saw Mrs. Ohr holding Willie by his collar and striking him with a switch the diameter of a large man's thumb. When Mrs. Schott saw him later that night Willie was covered with welts. She took him to Dr. White and Duncan Funk, one of the trustees of the orphanage. Willie Schott testified that Mrs. Ohr continued his punishment in the basement of the building, where she ordered him to strip and continued the beating on his bare skin. At trial, Willie testified that his attorney Mr. Coy visited him at home and told him what to say. Dr. Dunn testified that Willie had swollen welts on his back but that he did not see broken skin.
The jury hung at the first trial and the Pantagraph was critical of the attorneys who coached Willie Schott. At a subsequent trial Mrs. Schott was fined $20 for her treatment of Willie Schott.
Another incident, in October 1877, disclosed not only another beating incident, but a system of prejudice that limited the opportunities of African Americans. The incident involved Sue Reed, the school principal, and fourteen year old Tommy Landigan who refused to complete an assignment. Ms. Reed was a smaller woman and unable to control the larger boy. She called an African American employee of the school to help her -- by holding the boy for the switching. It so happened that the board of trustees was meeting at the school that day. General Black and Duncan Funk came to the site of the whipping after it had occurred. Mr. Funk was interviewed about the whipping at his bank. He made it clear that there was no problem about the severity of the whipping, but that there was a problem in the fact that Ms. Reed asked an African American employee to hold the boy during the beating. Mr. Funk also announced that the employment of African Americans, or "darkeys" as he called them, would cease as soon as possible. Census records seem to confirm that Duncan Funk's policy continued for at least 3 decades. The census records of 1880 and 1900 showed no African Americans employed at the orphanage, or living there. In 1910 the census showed that several African Americans were employed at the home and that about 40 African American children were living in the home.