The next time you’re breezing through the busy intersection of Campbell Avenue and Sunshine Street, think of orphans.

According to an 1876 Springfield map located by Sharol Neely, a local history librarian at the Library Center, a home for orphans of soldiers who died in the Civil War was situated on 27 acres on the northeast corner. This little-known fact was uncovered by local author Louise A. Jackson while researching her latest historical children’s novel about a 13-year-old boy named J.D. Morse.

Robert Neumann, supervisor of the Greene County Archives, suggested this topic to Jackson, who, 14 years ago, took early retirement from the University of Wyoming in Laramie to write full time.

“Some authors would say that the research needed to write a novel is not their favorite part of the process,” said Jackson, a central Texas native whose ancestors were early settlers of the Walnut Grove and Ash Grove area, “but the research is what I find the most exciting. To me, it’s an intellectual treasure hunt.”

She found that following the Civil War every northern state government instituted a home for orphans. It was a harrowing time for the children: “Hundreds roamed the countryside. Some were half-orphans. The fathers didn’t come home and the mothers couldn’t find work or couldn’t feed the kids, and relatives weren’t around to take them in.”

Mary Whitney Phelps, wife of Missouri Governor John S. Phelps, lobbied the U.S. Senate to allot the funds to start a soldiers’ orphans’ home in Springfield. In 1867, $20,000 (probably half a million in today’s dollars) was funded and a two-story frame house was built on that acreage catty-corner from Bass Pro Outdoor World. Jackson has located a photograph taken in 1915 of the facility that, by that time, was “falling down.”

In addition to the Springfield-Greene County Library District’s local history department, Jackson compiled her research at the Greene County Archives, History Museum for Springfield and Greene County, Wilson’s Creek Battlefield and from academic articles.

After six months of research, she’s “about ready to write. I have the general notion and am visualizing the plot.” But she’s appealing to the public to provide her one more form of research: “I’d love to have some oral memories or family anecdotes about ancestors who lived in this home from 1869 to 1870.” She encourages you to call her at 886-9679, and then her research will be complete.

Books by Louise A. Jackson Available at the Library

“Grandpa Had a Windmill, Grandma Had a Churn,” 1978

“Over on the River,” 1980

“Gone to Texas: From Virginia to Adventure,” 2003

“Exiled! From Tragedy to Triumph on the Missouri Frontier,” 2007

Jeanne C. Duffey, the community relations director for the Springfield-Greene County Library District, can be reached at jeanned@thelibrary.org.