‘They needed to be remembered’: Couple sponsors bench at Forestvale Cemetery honoring orphans

Shodair Children’s Hospital held a ceremony at Forestvale Cemetery on May 27 honoring orphans who died from various circumstances over the years.

The hospital unveiled a bench sponsored by Wally Jewell, former Lewis and Clark County justice of the peace, and his wife Pep, a medical transcriptionist at Shodair, showing the names of 105 orphans.

A memorial bench at Forestvale Cemetery honors Shodair Children’s Hospital orphans who died.

SONNY TAPIA, Independent Record

Pep said during the ceremony that the orphans died from various diseases, but most died from extreme malnourishment.  

A memorial bench for orphans who died sits in the Forestvale Cemetery as people gather for a ceremony on May 27.

SONNY TAPIA, Independent Record

Shodair Children’s Hospital began as home for orphaned and abandoned children in 1896. It was known then as The Montana Children’s Home and Hospital. 

Widows and widowers could not take care of their children, so they brought them to the orphanage, Pep said.

Dates next to the names also

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