St. Michael’s Orphanage Census Records

Kids and sisters on St. Michael’s drive, 1928 [Klevze]

Here’s some more research in preparation for the upcoming talk on St. Michael’s Orphanage: A Visual History, on Wed., May 8, 2024, in Hopewell and on Zoom. See also the recent post on the St. Michael’s Orphanage Photo Collection.

These are statistics extracted from the U. S. Census records for St. Michael’s from 1900 through 1950 (all that exist). They show a total of 1707 people listed as living on the property, including 1427 children and 111 sisters, plus chaplains, house staff, farm staff, and other families and groups resident there.

The full documents include a Stats Summary document with overall totals and decade-by-decade comparisons, plus the six separate Census Extract documents with the census listing for each decade and associated statistics (all as searchable PDF files).

Please contact us if you have additional photos, materials, or information to share about St. Michael’s to help in this research!

== View the St. Michael’s Census Records, 1900 – 1950 (PDF) ==

The Census Records

The first Summary Statistics document includes pages with total Occupants by Role by Decade, the Roles and Occupations of the sisters, staff, and farm workers; the Age and Sex of the children and sisters; the Birthplace of the children and sisters; and lists of all the sisters with Age and Occupation.

The Census Extracts for each decade have the transcribed entries from the census plus summary statistics. Note that these extracts are incomplete – while they include all the names and other interesting fields, they do not include all the possible columns from each census (although many of these were not used for the St. Michael’s entries).

There also are issues with the transcriptions from the original handwritten entries, including misspelled names. The entries have been manually sanity checked and egregious errors have been corrected, but please refer to the actual original census documents for other issues.

The census listings are typically grouped by roles (sisters, staff, children, staff, and farm families), and with the children often in alphabetical order and with siblings grouped together, so they presumably were copied from other records. The most readable census was from 1930, which is printed in neat handwriting directly by Sister M. Gildarda, the Mother Superior (and not written in cursive by an enumerator who did not know the names).

The Children

St. Michael’s kids fishing at Creamery pond, 1941 [Klevze]

The total number of children listed in the census records peaks to 297 in 1920 and then 370 in 1930. The quoted capacity of the building was 450, and the largest numbers found in other sources are 450 in 1931 (after the new South wing was built) and 418 in 1943. This seems a bit high based on the census numbers – but may include other residents of the building?

Some of the other trends for the children in these statistics include:

The addition of younger children (5 and under) around the 1920s
The addition of older children (14 and up to 16 and even 17) around 1930
The number of children born in New Jersey ranges from 75% in 1910 to 94% in 1950, with children from 17+ other states

The Sisters and Staff

Dining room at St. Michael’s (girls left, boys right), undated [SOSF]

There was significant turn-over in the staffing of St. Michael’s between each of these 10-year glimpses. Some of the farm families continue from 1920 to 1950, but the sisters seem to turn over completely. Each census lists a different Supervisor / Mother Superior, and the names of the other sisters do not seem to match. Note that this is confused because some of the census records list their original family names (e.g., Sophia Hoffman or Jane Mackin), which others list the names they adopted within the order (e.g., Sr. Mary Pamphila or Sr. Mary Eutropia).

There also seems to be large differences in the use of on-site staff, peaking with 22 and 31 in 1920 and 1930 respectively (with more children), while the number of sisters grew from under 20 in the earlier decades to 26 and 29 in 1940 and 1950 (with less staff and fewer children). The range of roles taken on by the sisters also changed between different census years – with teachers and nurses and matrons and prefects in all years, but other years with sisters taking on additonal jobs including laundry, seamstress, and domestic.

Some of the other staffing trends in these statistics include:

The growing number of sisters (from 11 to 29)
The addition of older sisters (in their 60s into the 80s) starting in 1930
The peaking of on-site staff in 1920 & 1930, with roles changing in different census years between sisters and on-site staff (e.g., laundry, seamstress, domestic)
The broad range of birthplaces for the sisters, with many from NJ and PA (the home of the order), but also from overseas, especially the U.K. and Germany/Austria

The Farm Families and Other Residents

Barnyard at St Michael’s farm, 1940 [Klevze]

The number of farm residents kept around 10 people from 1910 to 1950 (typically two farm families with children), but none were listed in 1900.

The 1930 and 1940 listings show another 10 people who were families living on the property (counted as separate residences), who worked at St. Michael’s and elsewhere. The end of the last page of the 1900 census for St. Michael’s also shows an additional 23 people with the residence identified as “Railroad Shanty,” all of whom were males from 23 to 30 years old and immigrated from Italy in 1899 and 1900.

Note: You can find the original census records at Ancestry.com ($$) or at FamilySearch.com, which is free with registration. On the Search page, specify the census year as the collection, then browse through New Jersey / Mercer County / Hopewell Township, and then select the Enumeration District (ED) for St. Michael’s, which is listed in the Extract documents.

== Upcoming talk on St. Michael’s Orphanage: A Visual History – Wed., May 8, 2024 ==

== View the St. Michael’s Census Records, 1900 – 1950 (PDF) ==

Please contact us if you have additional photos, materials, or information to share about St. Michael’s to help in this research!