Eva Carroll Monroe

​Eva Carroll Monroe dedicated her career to helping African American children in need, first working as a probation officer for the juvenile court, then founding and operating the Lincoln Colored Home in Springfield. She provided housing, education, and support to many African American children and widows.               

1869-1904

Eva Grace Carroll Monroe was born in Kewanee, Illinois (Henry County) on August 4, 1869, the first child of Civil War veteran Richard Carroll and his wife, Mary Glen Carroll. When Monroe was 12 years old her mother passed away, and she took on the role of helping to raise her seven younger siblings.

By the mid 1890s, Monroe had moved to Springfield and was working at the Prince Sanitarium and later as a juvenile probation officer. She soon noticed a major need in her community – racial discrimination and segregation prevented African American children in need from receiving support and access to resources. She immediately went to work doing what she could to care for these children, sometimes taking them into her own home as she worked on her plan to create a more formal safe haven space for Springfield’s African American youth in need.

Along with her sister Olive “Ollie” Price, she raised $125 to put a down payment on an old home, located at 427 S. 12th Street. She housed children and elderly women while asking her friends and acquaintances to donate additional funds, as well as furniture, straw and coal for the building. Eventually it became known as the Lincoln Colored Old Folks and Orphans Home. Described as “old and dilapidated,” it soon became apparent a new facility was needed.

Monroe formed a partnership with Mary Agnes Lawrence, the wife of a former Springfield mayor. Through fundraising from Springfield’s African American community and a significant contribution from Lawrence, the mortgage on the old home was paid and construction of a new facility on the same site began. Some of the construction materials were left over from the construction of Lawrence School (named after Lawrence’s husband) and the Lawrence family home, which was in the process of being redesigned by Frank Lloyd Wright.

1904-1931

Monroe and the Home’s 37 residents moved into the new building on New Year’s Day in 1904. Demand for space was often quite heavy; the building housed up to 60-70 people at a time throughout the years. The home was described in the Illinois State Journal as having “none of the characteristic griminess of an institution. It is a Home and no less…the presence or near presence of happy children is conveyed to one irresistibly…”

Despite financial strain, racism and false accusations of improper care, Monroe continued to operate the home for nearly 30 years. The Mary A. Lawrence Industrial School for Colored Girls began operating in the home by 1915, providing education and life skills training for young women (eventually young men were accepted into the school as well).

In addition to her work founding and operating the Lincoln Colored Home, Monroe was active in the Illinois Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs, serving two terms as president of the organization. She was a leader in the John Brown Relief Corps of Springfield and represented the state Women’s Relief Corps as a National Delegate at several conventions. Monroe was also active in the Methodist Church, Women’s Christian Temperance Union, and the Phyllis Wheatley Home Association of Chicago.

1932-1950

In 1932 the Lincoln Colored Home’s license was not renewed, and a combination of financial issues and changes in social service regulations forced the closure of the home in 1933. Monroe continued to live in the building until a debilitating accident required more care, first at St. John’s Hospital and then at a home for the elderly in Quincy, Illinois.

Eva Carroll Monroe died on January 31, 1950, leaving behind a legacy of community service, always willing to step forward to meet the needs of her neighbors. She is laid to rest in Springfield’s Oak Ridge

Cemetery. Biographer Flo Jameson Miller wrote of Monroe, “…through her efforts, many boys and girls have been able to enter the world as good and upright men and women…To know her is to know of service freely given, efforts well done and a future to be envied and she will justly deserve that final ecomium “Well Done, Good and Faithful Servant.”

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