Before today all I knew about Boys Town was that Mickey Rooney was in the movie about it.

We decided to visit because it is close to where we are staying right now. It is a gorgeous place. The homes are big brick houses. A set of parents and 10 boys live in each home. The campus has full sports fields. The buildings include vocational training, along with the normal education classes. On the campus is a full research hospital. In one of the churches the ladies were showing handmade quilts. They made them for the boys. All were king size so that they covered the bed to the floor.

 

We arrived on the week of the 100th anniversary. It was a huge reunion event. We got a chance to visit with a young women and her grandfather. He was so excited to be there. He told us that if he has not been brought to Boys Town that he would have been dead or dyeing in prison. Instead he had lived a great life with a wife, children and grandchildren. I used the granddaughter’s smart phone to take a picture of the 2 of them in front of a lifetime plaque with his name on it. That will one day be a nice reminder for her of the man she was so happy spending time with.