Seeking light in the holiday season

The holiday season can be a time of both light and darkness. During the rest of the year, adults too often are so preoccupied with their own affairs that they forget about the needs of others, especially children. The holidays give us a chance to reconsider. Whether we are celebrating the birth of an infant in a manger, an ancient military triumph and temple rededication, or our family and community bonds and culture, the holidays offer the chance for renewing feelings of joy and love in a world with so much misery and pain.

This spirit can be defined in many ways. We often see it expressed commercially but the true spiritual meaning of this time of year usually depends on what adults find in their own hearts.

But in the eyes of children, the holiday season can have a special meaning, especially for those who have experienced more dark than light in their young lives.

On Long Island, that transcending power of turning darkness into light often worked its magic at Brookwood Hall in East Islip, for many years an orphanage for children. At Brookwood Hall, recalled Islip Town Historian George Munkenbeck, even the most lonely or destitute child could find a home.

LOVE AND CARE

More than 500 boys and girls, many of them orphans or given up by their broken families for lack of money or parental guidance, lived in this grand Georgian Revival house. Its doors were open from 1942 during World War II until it closed in 1965, when large orphanages fell out of favor to foster homes. What made Brookwood special for so many as a nondenominational institution, Munkenbeck said, was its individual care.

“Many of these children didn’t have parents and knew the dark streets,” said Munkenbeck, who is also a lay preacher at the United Methodist Church in Sayville. “But when they came to Brookwood Hall, there was light — and that light is love.”

At Christmas, Brookwood children each received a gift, sometimes more than one, he said. With the country still climbing out of the Depression and then entering a war, these orphaned children were treated to a hearty meal, good clothing, and could even go sledding or skate on the adjacent Knapps Lake if it was cold enough.

In the big bay window of Brookwood Hall, a Christmas tree was lit throughout the holidays, a symbol to the entire neighborhood that here was a place full of joy and laughter. No longer were the lives of these children burdened by sorrow and abuse, but rather changed by adults who acted unselfishly and in the true spirit of the season.

A SPIRIT OF WELCOME

Whether some children had darker recollections is unclear, but the happy memories of many were so vivid that several Brookwood Hall children returned years later as adults to pay tribute and give thanks at a 2010 local historical society retrospective about their former orphanage. One 75-year-old former resident recalled walking through its doors for the first time in 1946 with his younger sister after their widowed father just dropped them there without saying goodbye. “All the kids sort of gathered around” newcomers with words of welcome, he recalled in a 2010 profile of the orphanage. “You were just accepted right away.”

One of the true miracles of Brookwood Hall, with its oak-paneled dining hall and fireplace and 40 other rooms, was how it managed to survive at all. Once based in Brooklyn, the orphanage was forced to relocate and somehow discovered the 52-acre site in East Islip, with its big house previously built by a Manhattan millionaire who used it as a summer retreat.

“It was a place for fancy balls and rich people and then it was turned into a home for orphans,” said Munkenbeck, marveling at its transformation.

Today, Brookwood Hall has been refurbished and is now part of Islip Town’s Department of Parks, Recreation and Cultural Affairs. In 2019, Islip produced a video suggesting that ghosts roam Brookwood Hall with the sounds of children laughing. Munkenbeck said he was dubious until he heard it himself in the building. “Most ghosts don’t run around laughing,” he said. “I made fun of everyone until I heard it.”

Whether one believes in the ghosts of Brookwood Hall, we all can recognize the holiday spirit they evoke and the sweet memories of love and joy that children and adults of all backgrounds and cultures can carry with them for the rest of their lives. It’s a spirit that all Long Islanders should hold dear in the year ahead, whether their days are full of light or dark.