I remember all those county homes and there was still an actual orphanage in the nearest city when I was a child. Sometimes we passed it when driving and my nose was pressed to the window wanting to see the children that lived there but I never did. Now we have welfare.
We had the Alms House here,it was turned into a working farm back in the 18 hundreds when we had a whole bunch of Irish Immigrants come over after the war of 1812.Way before my time but my Dad used to talk about it when it came up in conversations.