Caroline Smead Callender, 1854-1931
Caroline Callender attended the exclusive Charlotte Pope’s School on High Street, Meeting House Hill. This school was run by the sister of William Pope, a noted lumber merchant in Dorchester. After graduation she attended Dorchester High School, which was then located at the corner of Dorchester Avenue and Gibson Street.
The Callenders attended the First Parish Church. The congregation was comprised of well-to-do merchants and landowners, many descended from the early settlers of Dorchester.
The Callenders purchased a large tract of land on the eastern side of Neponset Avenue opposite the Harrison Square Church, begun by members of the Second Church in Codman Square. Some Unitarians left Second Church due to various conflicts and joined the congregation in Harrison Square.
When Dorchester grew in population after the annexation of 1870, so did the social problems, most of which were deemed to be cause by lack of education. In the 1880s two Dorchester leaders who were acutely aware of their neighborhoods’ needs were the Reverend Christopher R. Eliot of the first Parish Unitarian Church and the Reverend T.J. Volentine of the Fields Corner Congregational Bethany Society Church. Their concern focused on the needs of children.
Inspired by the vision of Rev. Christopher Eliot, Caroline opened her first school room in 1887 in one room of the Fields Building, calling it the Fields Corner Industrial School. The concept of an industrial school or “settlement house” where some of the staff actually live in the house, was seen as a great boost to the students as few people could expect to graduate from high school let along go to college. Early programs included a morning kindergarten, a boys’ reading and game room, and sewing classes for girls.
The House provided the community’s young people with needed skills. With Caroline’s leadership the staff organized a kindergarten, sewing classes, gardening classes and even cobbling instruction. When children went looking for work at as early an age as 14, these skills gave them an extra edge in the job market. Over the next two years, the response to these early efforts was so successful that by the winter of 1889, the founders of the Fields Corner Industrial School rented a small house at No. 7 Gordon Place. Gordon House, as it was popularly called, broadened its programs to serve adults as well as children.
Caroline worked tirelessly for the community and its people until her death in 1931.
In 1909, the Fields Corner Industrial School became Dorchester House.