This is the third of our Lowell Stories series, which we hope to make a regular feature on this website. If you have a story to share, get in touch and we’ll help preserve it in print. We’ll even write it for you if that would help. 

Richard Howe

Lowell Stories: The Faith Home:  Orphanage Funded by the “Faith” of Georgianna “Ma” Foss

by Melissa Franks

Sharyn Hardy, a Lowell native, guided me to this story about the gem of a woman who was Mrs. Georgianna “Ma” Foss, founder of the Faith Home, who sought to mother the motherless of Lowell’s own “huddled masses” for nearly 40 years.  

Sharyn, along with her parents, Raymond and Shirley (Trull) Hardy, are members of  the Faith Home’s Board of Directors, as were her grandparents on both Hardy and Trull sides.  Since it began operating as a charitable trust in the mid-1960s, donations from the Faith Home to varied organizations continue to support Greater Lowell area children.

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From the late 19^th to the early 20^th century, at least seven orphanages were founded in Lowell, ranging from the first, small Theodore Edson Orphange (~1875) run out of Parish Hall in St. Anne’s Church, to the large and enduring Franco-American Orphanage (~1908), which operated into the 1960’s before becoming a school.

In forming these orphanages, both churches and charity-minded individuals rallied to support the rising and critical need to care for the city’s many destitute children.  But from its start, the Faith Home stood as unique—this due to its founder, Mrs. Georgianna Foss, and her belief that “Faith” alone would provide the needed funding.

“Ma Foss”: more mother than matron for the Faith Home’s first 40 years

In 1883, Rev. O. E. Mallory of the Tabernacle Baptist Church identified Georgianna as the perfect caretaker for a “motherless daughter.”  Shortly thereafter, Georgianna opened the Faith Home “for the purpose of receiving and caring for orphans, neglected and destitute children.”  And for the next 40 years she served as its matron, known to all as “Ma Foss.”

Orphaned at the age of 4 and widowed without children at 35, Georgianna’s experiences compelled her calling, but her faith defined it.  With just $100 and some household goods, Georgianna established and abided by four guiding convictions:

1. She would not ask anyone for a penny, but would “ring the door-bell of heaven” and depend on God alone.
2. She would incur no debt.
3. She would provide no information related to the home’s or wards’ needs:  “Because it was the Lord’s work, she would trust in Him to provide all needed supplies.”
4. She would not receive a child until she prayed and “became convinced that the Lord would have her look after this child for Him.”

In other words, Georgianna based her work on the belief that “faith” would provide.   It did.  Her diaries are replete with stories of seemingly miraculous just-in-time answers to unannounced needs, from food to clothing to financial gifts.  As recounted in a 1938 history of the Faith Home:

“When the flour barrel was empty… a barrel would roll up to the back door…. When grace had been said at the supper table, and only a dish of rhubarb made up the evening meal, a ring at the front door, and a knock at the back door, would announce the arrival of bread at one door, and butter at the other, both coming in the nick of time.”

The Faith Home’s first long-term address was 249 Westford Street, at the corner of Westford and School.   There “Ma Foss” typically cared for between 18 and 22 children.

Under her roof, children found not an institution, but a nurturing home, receiving food, clothing and lodging, girded by regular education and religion.  Public school attendance was compulsory, as was Sunday School at Tabernacle Baptist (which changed its name to Calvary Baptist when it moved to 60 Hastings Street, its current location).  While some of her charges came for short stints only, over her 40-year tenure she raised more than 100 children for periods of two to 14 years, per her obituary.

After her death in 1922, the Faith Home continued to thrive through the 1950s, even as it adhered to Ma Foss’s strictures  A Lowell Sun article published in December 1954 to mark the Faith Home’s 71^st year says:  “The unique thing about the home is that it exists entirely on faith—the public has never in the 70 year history of the institution been asked to contribute a dime to its support.” 

Over the years, “unsolicited” gifts were invested into an endowment, and other committed matrons and members took the home’s helm.   In 1938, the Faith Home moved to 1039 Middlesex Street, a house bequeathed by Doctor George L. Van Dursen, the Faith Home’s friend and physician for years.   In 1964, the property was sold and the funds put into a charitable trust which—to this day—continues to provide for children in the Greater Lowell Area.

1089 Middlesex Street when it housed the Faith Home

PICTURE w/caption:  1089 Middlesex Street when it housed the Faith Home

Lowell orphanages, in addition to the above mentioned, also included St. Peter’s Orphanage (~1877, originally on Appleton, it moved to 530 Stevens Street in 1913, eventually becoming Keith Hall, then Lowell Catholic); Ayer Home for Young Women and Children (~1892, Pawtucket Street, at Fletcher Street intersection); the Children’s Home (~1903, 60 Kirk Street); and St. Mary’s Orphanage (~1900, Crosby Street).