Advancing the Kingdom

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Advancing T he Kingdom: Kingdom House
close down. They are in debt $9,000
and this month’s bills are still unpaid...38
More calls for relief were made during
this month than any other in 1963.
Unemployment, back bills, the new state
laws to those on relief all contributed to
this crisis.
By fall, some of the old services
were discontinued or curtailed and the
staff reduced to the minimum. Two
staff vacancies were not refilled – nor
were plans made for them to be. A plea
for volunteers from the churches was
issued.
The Winter 1964 edition of
Washington University Magazine
featured a story on Master of Social
Work Graduate and Kingdom House
staff member Joe Rulo. Addressing
the April meeting of the Women’s
Board, Mr. Koeppe reported...that a
donation as far away as Puerto Rico was
received as a result of the Washington
University article concerning Joe Rulo
and Kingdom House. He also said that
Senator Lang wrote asking for another
copy as he had given his copy to Sargent
Schriver [sic] for information in the fight
against poverty...39 According to “Hey,
Joe!”:
Kingdom House is one of St. Louis’ few
remaining settlement houses. Of the 12,000
people living in the area it serves, a few
blocks southeast of Union Station, three out
of four have no private bath, nine out of ten
have less than an eighth grade education,
and over half are receiving welfare
assistance. From the very young through the
aged comes a cry for help; frequently that
cry is simply—HEY, JOE!
...Although Joe’s clients range in age
from five to sixty, he works especially closely
with four boys’ clubs at the agency—clubs
like the Delicate Delinquents (ages 11-
15) and the Monarchs (ages 15-19). It’s
pretty much up to each club what it will do
and how much it will charge for dues; the
Delicate Delinquents pay a quarter a week
(‘a lot of jack to these kids,’ Joe says). They
learn democratic procedures; they organize
teams for league competition; and they
raise money, with car-washes and the like,
to pay for club jackets or whatever else they
consider important. (The entire lounge of
the teen center in the annex building has
been refurnished and painted through a joint
effort of all the clubs, boys’ and girls’.)...
On a typical day, in one ten-minute
period, a fourteen-year-old stops to tell
Joe he missed school that afternoon
because his twenty-five-year-old uncle, an
ex-convict, had met a violent death; two
pairs of mittens, stolen from a nearby store
are brought to him; three young girls try
to get him to take their side in a dispute
with another worker in the agency; and a
squeeky-voiced six-year-old cries, ‘Hey, Joe,
those big guys are all beating me up. Do I
have to go back upstairs?’
When Joe is with the kids he smiles and
laughs a lot. Alone, he sometimes wears a
look of despair. The rewards in his work are
small:
—a fourteen-year-old hasn’t missed a
94
A
P hoto:
A: Joe Rulo and Dorothy
Ransom
When Joe is with the
kids he smiles and
laughs a lot. Alone,
he sometimes wears a
look of despair. The
rewards in his work
are small