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 Their Waning Years - Confederate Home of Missouri ~ Higginsville, MO Posted by:  YoSam.
N 39° 05.879 W 093° 43.405
15S E 437444 N 4327899
Step on to the peaceful grounds of Confederate Memorial State Historic Site and experience where the last voices of the “Lost Cause” lingered. The site was once home to the Confederate Soldiers Home of Missouri.
Waymark Code: WMNQKJ
Location: Missouri, United States
Date Posted: 04/20/2015
Views: 5
County of Cemetery: Lafayette County
Location of Cemetery: E. Park Rd., inside Missouri Confederate Memorial State Historic Site, Jct. MO-213, busi. MO-13, & MO-20, 2 miles N. of Higginsville
Marker erected by: Missouri Department of Natural Resources, Division of State Parks
Marker text:
Their Waning Years
Without government pensions like those available to their former adversaries in the U.S. Army, aging, indigent, and handicapped confederate veterans relied on family and friends for assistance. By the late 1880s, it had become apparent the burden was too great for individual acts of charity. Like other states further south, the Confederate Home of Missouri was conceived as a place where "...worn-out soldiers may spend their declining years."
The home was incorporated August 17, 1889, and a year later the Grove Young farm north of Higginsville was purchased as the site for this institution. Initially all funding for the home came from private contributions. Early administrators aimed at self-sufficiency. Residents performed some maintenance on buildings and helped produce food on the orchards, gardens, and 100-acre farm. However, mounting operational costs forced the state of Missouri to assume control of the home on June 1, 1897.
Web link: [Web Link]
History of Mark:
In the decades immediately following the Civil War, Missourians expressed concern for the plight of their aging and ill Confederate veterans. In response, the Ex-Confederate Association of Missouri formed in order to build and maintain a Missouri Home for Confederate Veterans. They hoped to provide housing, food, and health care for Missouri’s Confederate veterans—a daunting prospect, especially considering they proposed to undertake the expense without the help of the state government. They felt that private funding would demonstrate popular “gratitude…and true sympathy” for the veterans without making “them a charge upon the public and a burden to the community.”
Despite such idealistic rhetoric, the Ex-Confederates struggled to raise the funds necessary to begin work on the Home. In 1890, however, a group of women in St. Louis organized to adopt the project. They christened themselves the Daughters of the Confederacy and quickly launched an aggressive fundraising campaign on behalf of the Home. By hosting dances, picnics, and socials, they eventually raised $25,000—enough to purchase a site and begin construction.
Thanks to the Daughters’ efforts, the Home formally opened on June 9, 1893. Nestled on prime Missouri farmland, the Home grew into a campus of thirty buildings, including dormitories, a chapel, and at least fourteen private cottages. There was also a cemetery and manicured park land. For the most part, however, the grounds remained open farmland, where the veterans raised crops and livestock. Not only did the residents produce their own food, but they also generated their own electricity and steam heat. In effect, the Home was an entirely self-sufficient community. Superintendent Capt. F. P. Bronaugh pronounced it “the grandest charity in the country.”
Additional point: Not Listed
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Visit Instructions:
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