The Addison sisters

It was 1952, yet to them, it feels like yesterday. Sisters Vel Addison and Suzanne Cline spent seven years growing up at Children’s Home Society of Florida’s (CHS) Buckner Division – and they have nothing but fond memories.

With a sparkle in their eyes and a bounce in their laughs, you’d think they were the same little girls running through the halls in the 1950s. From the ages of 7 – 14 and 6 – 13 respectively, Vel and Suzanne spent crucial years of their girlhood in what is now the Andrews Building, an administrative office on the Buckner campus.

It all started when the girls’ parents divorced. Their mother was left with five girls, worked two jobs and suffered from continuous back problems. So, their father agreed to take the three youngest sisters – Vel, Suzanne and Suzanne’s twin. When a neighbor discovered the girls home alone in the afternoons, their father was given two choices: hire a housekeeper or put them in a home. Since he couldn’t afford help, he brought them to CHS, where he visited every Sunday.

“We had a good life here,” Suzanne says. “CHS was a good, controlled environment. We were protected. It gave us stability and predictability when we didn’t have it elsewhere.”

They followed a strict schedule, along with about 20 other girls. They had chores and were expected to get good grades. They had Bible study every night, attended church twice on Sundays and again on Wednesday evenings.

“We did everything together here; we were like a family,” Vel says.

“It taught me a lot of responsibility,” Suzanne says. Responsibility, they both say, that carried through into adulthood and into their years as mothers themselves. Both women, now grandmothers, became quite successful in the cosmetology field, even owning salons at one time.

Still, of their days at CHS, Vel says, “I remember just having a good time.”

“There was a lot of laughing,” Suzanne says.