Looking over a group of old photos is Pearl Clowes who was just one many who attended the reunion at Concordia Sunday afternoon as she was a formal orphan that attended their years ago.

JEFFERSON TWP — Concordia Lutheran Ministries hosted a luncheon Sunday in the Haven I dining room. But those in attendance recall a day when the site on Marwood Road was simply known as “the grove.”

There, many a picnic was held.

And Flo Allison of Winfield Township recalls going there with a girl named Marsha. The duo crawled with flashlights through a storm drain, entering from the culvert's exposed end on Route 356.

“If we had a torrential downpour we'd have been killed,” recalled the 64-year-old Allison, about 8 years old at the time of that excursion.

“I was hoping (Marsha) would be here,” she said.

Allison grew up playing at Concordia because for several years her parents rented a house near the corner of Route 356 and Marwood Road. But about half the luncheon's 20 attendees were alumni of the The Evangelical Lutheran Concordia Home, an orphanage that began operating there in 1882.

Although the first senior citizens were housed at Concordia in 1910, the orphanage operated until 1958.

Now 73, James Sleigh of Renfrew lived at the orphanage from 1941 to 1956 along with his sister Adrienne Logan and three other siblings.

Sleigh recalls early morning farm chores that included milking cows, feeding about 500 chickens and loading milk cans onto a truck.

“When you were done you washed up and had breakfast,” he said, noting school then began at 8:30 a.m.

Summers at Concordia included working the fields cooperatively with two neighboring farms, then riding a Studebaker truck to the Mill Dam swimming hole near Sarver, now a residential property. Other summer treats included riding Concordia's two work horses, Tom and Dan.

In the fall, staff and residents made apple butter in deep, brass kettles.

“The day before you gathered up the wood and started the fires. They put a little bit of water in the kettles and the matron and the girls would cut up the apples,” Sleigh recalled.

“From school, we would take turns going over to stir all day long.”

When the apple butter was complete, the children were allowed to scoop the residual with their hands, getting the sticky substance onto their clothes as they leaned into the kettles.

During winter, the orphans would sled ride and skate.“We cut a hole in the ice to make sure it was 2 1/2 inches (thick). Then the word would spread,” he said, explaining how neighborhood children joined the Concordia youths, some who were orphaned and others whose families had fallen on hard times.Pearl Clowes, 78, was among those neighbors who grew up playing at Concordia.Clowes has attended many of the luncheons since they were started in the early 1970s by Eleanor Schwalm, whose late husband Horst was then Concordia's administrator.Although the gatherings began informally with Clowes and Schwalm cooking the meals themselves, they now are prepared by staff as part of Concordia's annual carnival.Despite that evolution, alumni say attendance is waning. Sleigh said as many as 40 orphans lived on site during his early years there, but enrollment gradually dwindled.“So many have passed away,” Clowes said of the earlier residents.Although some no longer attend, Tina Toth, 69, of Columbia City, Ind., attended this year for the first time.“The trees are huge. The pasture's like a forest,” she observed.Toth shared memories of roller skating with the others, with neighbors complaining when noisy skate wheels traveled over bumpy stone. But her fondest memories centered on friends.“He's the little guy who's in all my pictures,” she said to her husband about Sleigh.Also traveling from out of state was Jack Harmon of Marine City, Mich., who lived at Concordia during the same timeframe as Toth and the Sleighs.Harmon reunited with the Sleighs in the 1950s and began attending the alumni luncheons when they began.“I've been coming ever since,” he said.In some cases, many with ties to Concordia also return in other ways. Friends and neighbors work on site — and still others, like 73-year-old Blaine Montag, have returned to the campus as residents.Montag's grandfather A.H. Pflueger was schoolmaster at Concordia from around 1920 to 1956.“I pretty much grew up with the orphans, said Montag, who resides in a Haven II apartment.“It's always really been great to have people who grew up here come back,” said Schwalm, his neighbor.“We've had a number of them come back as they got older and spend their last years here, too,” she said.

Now known for providing care and housing to senior citizens, Concordia Lutheran Ministries began by serving youth. Here is a timeline of how the nonprofit agency has evolved:• 1881 — Land donated by Christian and Margaretha Oertel to begin an orphanage.• 1882 — Orphanage began operating as The Evangelical Lutheran Concordia Home.• 1910 — First senior citizen received care.• 1915 — Oertel Hall was constructed to accommodate increasing number of elderly.• 1938 — Men's and women's cottages constructed.• 1941 — One room schoolhouse and administrator's apartment constructed.• 1954 — Organization name changed to Lutheran Welfare.• 1958 — Last orphan left Concordia's care.• 1963 — Neitzel Hall, now Oertel Care Center, constructed with 19 nursing beds.• 1968 — Kausch Hall, also now Oertel Care Center, constructed with 26 nursing beds.• 1981 — Original Concordia Haven Apartments constructed; Markus Hall constructed.• 1987 — Child Care Center opened.• 1990 — Concordia Haven I construction began.• 1996 — Concordia Haven II constructed.• 1997 — Home health care service line began private duty operations; organization name changed to Concordia Lutheran Ministries.• 1998 — Lund Care Center was constructed with 57 private skilled care and 100 personal care rooms; outpatient rehabilitation services began operations.• 2000 — Adult day services began operations.• 2001 — Concordia Haven III was built with 102 retirement apartments.• 2003 — Concordia acquired Ridgewood Place in Plum Borough, a 75-bed personal care facility, The Orchard, a 55-bed personal care facility and adjacent 27 acres of farmland in Butler; and Concordia Home Help, now Alliance Visiting Nurses; opened Providence Pharmacy Services.• 2004 — Acquired Rebecca Residence in Allison Park, a 65-bed personal care and 60-bed skilled nursing facility.• 2005 — Acquired Good Samaritan Hospice in Wexford.• 2006 — Restructured into a family of companies with Concordia Lutheran Ministries as the parent holding company; Lund Care Center expansion project completed to allow 225 licensed beds in personal care, 136 licensed beds in skilled nursing, 10 licensed beds in a new hospice unit, and aquatic therapy pool to expand therapy services; fire destroys entire Haven I complex.• 2007 — Angel Tear Fund established to support domestic and international missions; acquired the historic 500-acre Saxony Farm a mile from the Cabot campus.• 2008 — Haven I reconstruction completed; acquired Concordia Medical Equipment; Alliance Visiting Nurses restructured and relocated; achieves elite CARF-CCAC Aging Services Network Accreditation.• 2009 — Acquired Concordia of the South Hills in Mount Lebanon, containing 126 retirement apartments, 48 personal care, 12 memory support and 46 skilled nursing beds; partners with Meadville Medical Center and St. John Visiting Nurse Alliance to form VNA Alliance, serving the Northwest Pennsylvania Region; establishes innovative Institute for Lifelong Learning.• 2010 — Good Samaritan Hospice affiliated with Heritage Valley Health System.• 2011 — Acquired Concordia of Cranberry with 84 personal care beds, and Concordia of Fox Chapel with 58 beds designed for memory support.

From 1882 until 1958, Concordia Lutheran Ministries operated an orphanage. This is Concordia?s original one-room schoolhouse, with former school teacher Adolph Pflueger and some children. The date of the photograph was not reported, but Pflueger served from sometime around 1920 until 1956.