Founded: April 1, 1905
Location: 3921 New York 26, Vernon Center, NY, USA
Other names:
Saint’s Rest
Overview
For nearly a century, the Maple Park Home housed ladies from the area. In exchange for living there, they would donate their remaining assets to the home. It had room for up to 20 residents.
Details
In early 1905, a group of raised the funds to create a home for aged women and unwed mothers in Vernon Center. They purchased the F.A. Cody homestead for the location. Cody, wealthy leader of Vernon Center’s hops farming empire (and distant cousin to “Buffalo Bill Cody”). A civic-minded leader, Cody sold it for a small fee to become the “Saint’s Rest, Maple Park Home for Aged Ladies” and it served in that community-focused capacity as a not-for-profit benevolent association for nearly a century, through 2003, housing about a dozen women at a time.
One of the initial donors was Elihu Root, then Secretary of War and future recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. Another supporter was the family who founded the Armour Meat Company, originally from Stockbridge. The local Vernon Center churches, Parkside Methodist and the Presbyterian Church, supplemented funding through dinners and ice cream socials for the rest of its existence.
Through the years, local civic groups, including the boy scouts, girl scouts, and church youth groups spent time visiting the residents, making arts and crafts, and singing Christmas carols at the Maple Park Home.