The Children's Front: The Story of an Orphanage in Wartime France

By Marty Parkes

This story is a true one about an orphanage—Refuge des Petits—in France during World War II. Here, a privileged American man struggled to establish a refuge for desperate children. This shelter provided needy, displaced youngsters with a worthy place in the world—while he found his own.

The Refuge would flourish. It played a leading role in what became known as the Children's Front. This book is full of inspiring stories of resilience, generosity, and hope from the staff and youngsters who made the Refuge their home in the early 1940s and later.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Mar 14, 2023
• ISBN: 9781957651309

Book preview

Preface

Let me tell you a story about a friend of mine named Seymour Houghton.

This story is a true one about an orphanage—Refuge des Petits—in France during World War II. Here, a privileged American man struggled to establish a Refuge for desperate children. This Shelter provided needy, displaced youngsters with a worthy place in the world—while he found his own.

The Refuge would flourish. It played a leading role in what became known as the Children’s Front. This Shelter influenced hundreds of youths who would have floundered if not for their blessed good fortune in finding their way to its wooden gates that never closed.

It is a tale that is both sad and full of joy. It describes the direst of circumstances, of death and destitution. It recounts the barbaric treatment that one human can inflict upon another—for no reason other than living on different sides of a national border, or for having a different skin color, or for speaking a different language, or for worshiping at a different church, or for coveting the possessions of another individual or country.

At the same time, the story contrasts these circumstances with uplifting daily instances of generosity, hope, and love that combined to nurture France’s next generation. It is a tale of compassion and courage carried forth in a deprived and perilous environment. Ultimately, it stands as a testament to heroism and honor.

These sentiments seem particularly poignant today. Heart-wrenching scenes emanating from Ukraine document its struggle against its Russian invader. Now a Russian act of aggression has produced the largest number of refugees—five million and counting—in Europe since World War II.

This book about the Refuge concentrates largely on the World War II years of 1940–1941, a bit more than eighty years ago. Countless refugees were then displaced from their homes, churches, shops, businesses, schools, and communities.

Much human progress has been made during this eight-decade interval. But in other ways, few—if any—steps forward have been achieved as this comparison of yesterday and today demonstrates.

Two books describing the World War II era influenced the writing of this one and can be read and appreciated by young and old alike.

The first is a venerable volume called Going Solo by Roald Dahl. It was published many years ago. You probably know Dahl best as the author of entertaining children’s classics such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The BFG, and James and the Giant Peach. Going Solo represents a different type of classic. It immortalizes Dahl’s exploits while serving in the Royal Air Force during World War II. It vividly describes the harrowing life of a fighter pilot who was one of the lucky few to survive.

The other book, Infinite Hope, provides a different perspective on the war. It appeared for the first time just a few years ago, in 2019. Its author and illustrator, Ashley Bryan, produces a vibrant palette of language, imagery, and colors to bring the wartime landscape to life. It underscores war’s effects—good and bad—on the life of each individual enveloped by conflict.

Bryan’s tale seems especially poignant because he was a black man nobly serving his country while suffering demeaning treatment associated with the segregation of the US armed services during World War II. I became aware of Bryan’s exquisite volume in early 2022 when I stumbled upon his obituary in the New York Times. He had passed away at age ninety-eight. Like Dahl, he wrote and/ or illustrated many fine volumes for young readers during his long, productive life.

Another written story also had a profound impact. One day on a lark, I typed Seymour’s name into Google’s search box and hit return. Several items came up. Most were routine things you might suspect: death notices, genealogical information, and links to birth announcements or property records. But one item caught my attention. In the archive of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary appeared The Story of a Refuge in France written by Seymour himself. I had been unaware of its existence.

I secured a copy and devoured its two dozen pages. I read the text again and again. I shared copies with others. I highlighted passages that brought the horrors of wartime alive in his articulate voice.

That is why I have interspersed quotes from Seymour throughout the text. Included, as well, are other related passages that I encountered in my research. His story became a personal obsession—a positive one, I think, if such a thing is possible.

Please read on and learn about why Seymour Houghton took the fateful step of willingly planting himself in the middle of a war zone. The so-called Children’s Front in France became the cause to which he devoted his time, talents, and treasure—in sum, the essence of his life.

Chapter 1

Formation

SOME WORDS ABOUT SEYMOUR’S life before I tell you the story about the great cause he embarked upon: that of creating the Children’s Front in France during the ravages of World War II.

He was born Augustus Seymour Houghton Jr. in 1906 in Pelham, New York, a town near his family’s residence in Fairfield County, Connecticut. Two sisters had preceded him, and the sister closest in age to him, Caroline, was named after his mother.

Caroline remained particularly close to Seymour throughout his life. I could detect more than a hint of loving enthusiasm in Seymour’s normally deliberate tones whenever he mentioned her. Throughout his life, he visited the US continually, journeying to Brownsville, Texas , along the border with Mexico to visit Caroline at her home there. I never met her, but I spoke with her on the phone several times throughout the years when I called to speak with Seymour. There is no doubt that Seymour’s love for his sister was reciprocated.

His father, Augustus Seymour Houghton Sr., was a prominent attorney in New York City. He hailed from what is called patrician roots, which means being a member of a long-established and wealthy family. His family traced their roots back to a leading New York area family, several of whom settled near Corning, New York. This branch of the Houghton family had prospered in the glass industry and became wealthy and prominent. At least one of them had served several terms in the US House of Representatives.

Seymour once told me that this branch of his family represented what he termed distant cousins. He claimed that he had only met them casually a couple of times and did not really know them at all. I suspect, though, that at least some financial prosperity had trickled down through the family tree far enough to reach his father—who was born in 1866 just after the Civil War.

His father, Seymour Sr., received his secondary education at the famous Phillips Academy, an exclusive school in Andover, Massachusetts. It remains one of the oldest schools in the US and among the most prestigious. From there, Seymour Sr. enrolled at Amherst College in Massachusetts, another highly regarded small private institution. Students from Phillips Academy often attended colleges like Amherst—then and today.

He graduated with a BA degree in 1888 and moved to New Bern, North Carolina, near the Outer Banks. He studied law at a firm there. Back then, many lawyers learned their craft working at a law firm under the supervision of experienced practitioners rather than attending a law school as attorneys do today. Seymour Sr. was admitted to the North Carolina bar to practice law two years later in 1890.

Soon enough, though, he relocated to the New York City area. His mentor became the prominent attorney Elihu Root, a relationship most likely facilitated by family connections. Less than a decade later, Root would serve first as US Secretary of War and later as US Secretary of State in the administration of US President Theodore Roosevelt. Seymour Sr. joined the New York State Bar Association in 1891. He eventually became a partner in a law firm bearing his name. He practiced there for many decades until 1948.

In the meantime, Seymour Sr. served as a corporate director of zinc and hosiery companies located in New Jersey as well as a bank, the Putnam Trust Company, located near his residence in Connecticut. Seymour Sr.’s career activities proved lucrative and