Who was Guertha Pratt, and where was her home?
For more than 100 years – from the 1870s until the early 1980s – and largely in a time before nursing homes and assisted living facilities, the Penn Yan community hosted a home for elderly women from Yates County and the surrounding area to spend their golden years and maintain their independence. For the first 40 or so years, the home was located on North Main Street and then Chapel Street, operated by the Penn Yan Methodist Episcopal Church, and called the Old Ladies’ Home. For the next 70 or so years, the home was located on Clinton Street, operated by the Pratt Foundation, and called the Guertha Pratt Home.
The title to this article asks two questions, and both of them have interesting answers. The first is interesting because Guertha Pratt had no apparent involvement in the home that was named for her. The second is interesting because, while the answer is simple – the home was located at 224 Clinton St., on the corner with Hamilton Street – the home was not “her” home. According to her husband Seneca’s obituary, Mrs. Pratt “was greatly interested in the Old Woman’s Home in this village,” though it isn’t clear whether she was actively involved in the home. Meanwhile, the Pratt family home – where Seneca died – was located on East Main Street.
What became known as the Guertha Pratt Home started out in either 1870 or 1873 – different sources vary between the two years – as the Old Ladies’ Home. Whatever year it happened, it began when several women from the Methodist Church raised $400 (approximately $9,500 today) and purchased a home on North Main Street to rent out to several needy Methodist women at low rent. According to a typewritten document in our subject file, it was especially meant to be a permanent home for Salinda Soper, an elderly teacher who had kept a private school in the building.
With a charter secured, the organization was officially known as The Old Ladies’ Home of the Methodist Church of Penn Yan. Darius Ogden’s wife, Judith, served as the president from the beginning until her death in 1894.
Over the years, the group struggled along and received small donations to keep the home going. In 1890, a $1,500 gift from the estate of Johanna Sheldon enabled the group to sell the North Main Street property and purchase a residence on Chapel Street. At this home, two or three rooms were rented to “several worthy individuals,” Frank L. Swann terms it in a 1959 “History in the News” column, to raise money to pay taxes and cover repairs. Each resident, however, had to pay her own living expenses.
In 1910, Mr. Pratt – “one of the most active and enterprising of our business men,” according to his obituary – proposed giving the organization $5,000 if the group could raise another $2,500 for an endowment fund. In exchange, the home would become known as the Guertha Pratt Home in memory of his wife, the former Guertha Wolcott, who had died June 8, 1909 from complications related to appendicitis. Mr. Pratt had started out in the shoe business with his father, Harvey, and then became a member of the Andrews, Pratt & Co. flour mill whose name later changed to Russell, Fox & Company. Mr. Pratt began to manufacture grape baskets in a large factory at the foot of Monell Street on the site of what became Guile & Windnagle when Mr. Pratt sold out and retired.
Two ladies from the organization’s board went out and began raising money toward the $2,500 goal. People responded and stepped up, giving anywhere from $50 to $200 or even smaller amounts. However, the final $500 was not raised until three years later. Mr. Pratt waived his stipulation on raising the money, especially since a board member promised to pay 6 percent on the remaining $500, $30, per year until the entire amount was raised.
The Chapel Street property was sold for $1,500, and Maurice Andrews offered his home at 224 Clinton St. for $5,500. The board agreed to pay $4,500 down and 6 percent on a $1,000 mortgage. The board bought the home April 1, 1911 but allowed Mr. Andrews to remain in his home until May 1. In addition, the board sold 88 feet of the property on Hamilton Street, with a barn, for $600. Before the home opened, the Theodore Hamlin family decorated the two parlors and completely furnished the front parlor, including a library of a hundred books. They wished to maintain the library and established a fund for the purpose.
The Guertha Pratt Home officially opened May 24, 1911, with Belle Stebbins as the first matron and Sarah Butterfield as the first resident. The community showered the new home with housewarming gifts: table linen, dining table and chairs, dishes, silverware, a kitchen stove, and food supplies. Henry Underwood gave a rug for the back parlor. A few months after the home opened, about a year after his initial donation, Mr. Pratt made another donation to the residence now named for his wife. Seeing the home up and running and convinced it would succeed, he presented a total of $15,000 – $10,000 from himself and $5,000 from his mother. Coincidentally, Mr. Pratt died a few weeks later of a stomach ailment.
The residence was not officially known as the Guertha Pratt Home until 1919. Though the trustees of the Methodist Church had released the home to the board of what would now be the Pratt Foundation, a lack of funding and assets had caused the charter not to be changed. Thus, on paper at least, the home was still known as the Old Ladies’ Home. With the high cost of living brought on by World War I, it was thought best to get a new charter under the name of the Guertha Pratt Home and make it, though it already had been, an nondenominational institution. Reorganization of the charter called for the board to include 12 directors, three each from four of Penn Yan’s churches – Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopal, and Baptist.
In 1928, the dining room was redecorated and refurnished in memory of Sophia Eva Wise by members of her family. The family also created a trust fund to maintain the room in its complete condition. In 1929, an endowment fund was created and placed in trust with the Rochester Trust and Safe Deposit Company. Many people, including the late New York State Senator William Carson, contributed to this fund during its existence. Also in 1929, while residents initially paid what they could to live there, the home set a one-time charge of $400 for anyone over age 75, $500 for people from age 65 to 75, and $600 for anyone from outside of Yates County. That fee never increased until the last few years of the home’s operation.
Many renovations took place over the years: exterior painting in 1938, removal of the cupola in 1946, interior redecoration in 1949, exterior painting in 1950, remodeling of the kitchen in 1951, modern heating plant in 1955, and landscaping in 1959. Effective September 1960, a state law made other changes mandatory – complete sprinkler system, railings in corridors and bathrooms, and corridors for alternate exits. Continued gifts from individuals and families – such as the Pratts, the Hamlins, and the Wises – aided these improvements.
At full capacity, the residence could house 18 people. Over the years, a laundry room, an enlarged kitchen, and bedrooms were added to the rear of the home.
In 1961, the Guertha Pratt Home recognized its 50th anniversary with an open house to “show people of this area that retirement for women can mean more than a rocking chair,” according to a newspaper article promoting the event. The article noted the home operated independently through resident fees, gifts, and an endowment. Two hundred people attended the open house, with the ladies living there ready to greet them and praise their home.
A newspaper article covering the event stated each resident had her own room, “surrounded by treasured items from their past,” and had the use of two living rooms downstairs to entertain guests and a large dining table for meals. The ladies were free to enjoy church and local affairs and move about the community and could help in the kitchen or with the cleaning if they so chose. “Throughout the years, the Board of Directors has aimed to make the home truly a home and not an institution,” the article stated.
The Guertha Pratt Home remained opened for two more decades. In September 1982, Elizabeth Vaughn – the last of the residents – moved out. Then, the home was empty and listed for sale. Because of rising costs of maintenance and decreasing need because of a number of nursing homes and low-rent apartments now in existence, the home’s board of directors decided that January to close the home. Another problem was keeping up with stringent state safety and health regulations in operating a retirement home. A newspaper article of the time called it “the last of a vanishing breed – the women’s retirement home.”
Minnie “Aunt Min” Presler summarized the spirit and the legacy of the Guertha Pratt Home when she celebrated her 97th birthday in 1972, having lived at the home for 13 years by that point. The oldest of the home’s 14 residents at the time, she helped out by ironing napkins and tablecloths, washing her own laundry, and putting the clean dishes away.
“The best thing that ever happened to me was coming here. Here is home,” she commented in a couple of newspaper articles. “I can’t ask for anything nicer than my home here. I’ve never regretted having come.”
