Although he was the first superintendent of the Connie Maxwell Orphanage, the Rev. J.L. Vass often seems overshadowed by others in Connie Maxwell Children's Home's history. His story wasn't nearly so dramatic as that of Connie and her parents and he didn't serve nearly as long as the two superintendents who followed him. Yet Vass had the extremely difficult task of literally getting the ministry off the ground. Vass had served on the original committee that reviewed possible

I had long heard that it was an editorial by W.W. Keys, the editor of The Baptist Courier, that had spurred South Carolina Baptists on to beginning its ministry to children but it wasn't until I began working on The Connie Maxwell Story documentary project that I actually looked at the original Nov. 15, 1888 issue of the denominational paper. As a former newspaper editor myself, I was expecting a formal piece in which Keys presented the case for starting the ministry and call

Although the Connie Maxwell Orphanage did not open until 1892, the American Civil War unquestionably had an impact on its founding just as it impacted everything in the South during the last half of the 19th Century. The orphanage's chief benefactor, Dr. John Maxwell, was a Civil War veteran who served as a surgeon for the Confederacy and saw action at major battles throughout the war. More than this, however, the war altered both the economy and demographics of the South. Ac

This short segment of the rough cut of The Connie Maxwell Story will give you a small taste of the documentary as it is developing. This section tells the story of the Maxwell family and how seven-year-old Connie succumbed to scarlet fever in 1883. Many of you who lived, worked or visited at Connie Maxwell Children's Home in Greenwood, S.C. have probably seen the original color portrait of Connie that was painted when she was very young as well as the newer portrait that depi