[3] Two Sisters of Charity of Nazareth were assigned to the orphanage, and the first boys lived in a seminary dormitory building.
[1][5][6] From St. Vincent, 81 girls moved to a newly completed wing of the St. Thomas building, allowing many brothers and sisters to be reunited.
[7] Living conditions during the orphanage's last years have been revealed by a former resident from 1981 to 1983, who was written about in a 2005 Washington Post article describing St. Thomas–St.
The orphanage housed about 450 children, who slept in a room as big as a gymnasium filled with dozens of beds.
Vincent Orphanage closed as a result of rising costs and increased government services for orphans.
[3][7] The first building, completed in 1938, held dormitories, classrooms, nurseries, reading and recreation rooms, and a training center.
In 1954 a concrete and brick gymnasium was built at a cost of $100,000, and was connected to the main building by a sheltered pathway.
[5] They also spoke of physical and sexual abuse by nuns, who they alleged beat and molested them, and locked them in dark rooms without food.
Richardson confronts the institutionalized physical and emotional abuse suffered by orphans at the hands of their caretakers, and also documents the lawsuit.