Child Care

The Wichita Falls Day Nursery was established to serve poor white children, and the Colored Day Nursery was started by a black principal's wife to serve black children during the early years. After many decades of serving children and one name change, these two organizations became one in 1973 and have continued to operate as Child Care, Inc. The W... ichita Falls Day Nursery was established in 1918 when a group of prominent women in Wichita Falls identified the need for child care for children who were living on the banks of the Wichita River and were left to care for themselves when their parents went into town to work. The women had become familiar with the plight of the children when they took leftover food to the families. They described the children as "pitiful and dirty, and running wild. Mr. J.W. Culbertson offered Mrs. Kemp a three-room house at 704 Lamar to be used for the first nursery, which opened with nine children on June 7, 1918. The second location was at 502 Lamar. Through the efforts of the Kiwanis Club, the Federated Mission Society, and other community fundraising efforts, a modern ten room brick building was completed at 403 Lamar for the nursery in 1925. On the other side of town, in 1918, after hearing about the nursery for white children, Mrs. Ella Duckenfield asked Mrs. Kemp for her assistance in starting a similar project for black children. Mrs. Kemp and the members of the Wichita Falls Federated Missionary Society, helped Mrs. Duckenfield start the Colored Day Nursery at a small four room house at 422 Welch Street. The nursery opened with fifteen children and was operated seven days a week. In 1924 a lot next door at 420 Welch was donated and a small house that had been on the property of the new Wichita Falls Day Nursery was donated and moved to the site. A new roof was added and the Colored Day Nursery had what was said to be "a very nice place." In the late 1920s and again in the late 1930s, the Optimist Club spearheaded several community fundraisers to build frame additions to the ...Read More