Party to celebrate as Good Shepherd building turns 100

Deborah Mullins was the youngest of 12 children living in Yakima when she started sneaking out at night to be with her friends.

But rather than send her to a reform school, her parents sent her off to Seattle to find a home with the nuns at the Home of the Good Shepherd in Wallingford.

"They opened their arms and loved me to death," said Mullins, 56, who lived at the home for troubled girls from 1967 to 1969. She graduated from St. Euphrasia, its school program developed by the Sisters of the Good Shepherd and named after the order's founder.

From 1907 to 1973, the Home of the Good Shepherd took in thousands of girls "considered incorrigible, chronic runaways or who had friends of questionable character," according to the center doctrine.

Today, from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m., the facility's 100th anniversary will be celebrated.

Girls sent to the home lived in the now-historic brick building, locked at night and surrounded by barbed wire. They worked in the commercial laundry run by the sisters.

At first, Mullins hated it.

"I was locked in, but as bad as I thought it was, it was the best thing that ever happened in my life," she said. "They taught me that education was important. Many of us who walked out turned out pretty danged normal."

Mullins now lives in Arizona and works as an environmental consultant.

"You always knew you were safe and not condemned for anything you knew or said," Mullins said. "I didn't want to leave."

Indeed, many of those who lived at the Home of the Good Shepherd stayed in contact with the nuns long after it was closed.

Some girls were sent by their parents, others by the courts.

The south wing housed the "penitent" girls, those who society believed were wayward and incorrigible. The sisters maintained an orphanage in the north wing.

The Sisters of the Good Shepherd Catholic order was founded in France in 1835 by Mother Mary Euphrasia, who established convents throughout the world. The sisters moved to Seattle in 1890 and in 1906 purchased an 11-acre site in newly plotted Wallingford. The home opened July 27, 1907, with 11 nuns and 171 girls.

By 1973, when the home closed, the sisters had sheltered and educated more than 8,000 girls, not including the children in the orphanage.

That year, there was a proposal to demolish the building and replace it with a shopping center. But the Wallingford Community Council put up a fight, and in 1975, Historic Seattle did a study and found it would be possible to use the building as a community center.

The city bought the building in 1976 and transferred ownership to the nonprofit Historic Seattle, which now operates it. Today it houses some 40 organizations, from the Meridian School to Seattle Tilth, the Wallingford Senior Center and the Washington Toxics Coalition. The expansive grounds also include a 6.5-acre city park, Meridian Playground.

The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978 and designated a city landmark in 1984. The building still has many of the original features, including the stained-glass windows.

Elaine Paulson, who graduated from St. Euphrasia in 1953 and now lives in Everett, said she was sent to Good Shepherd because she ran away from home.

"It was scary at first, and different," she said. "But it was a nice place, and you made a bond there you didn't break."

Seattle resident Sheilah Castor said she went to the home because she had trouble adjusting to life with a new stepfather. She lived there from 1967 to 1969.

"My home life was chaotic, and the school provided stability," she said. "I was a hard-headed, stubborn brat."

She graduated from its school program first in a class of six students. The nuns found her a job cleaning houses, and Castor would return on her days off to help the sisters.

"The home gave stability to a lot of us who didn't have it on the outside," she said. "The home had a tremendous influence on the person I am today."

Susan Gilmore: 206-464-2054 or sgilmore@seattletimes.com