By Darger's own account, his father was kind and reassuring to him. Darger Sr. was a tailor with disabilities, and his poor health made caring for his son difficult. They lived together until 1900, when his father was taken to St. Augustine's Home for the Aged. Because of his apparent intellect, the young Darger had been enrolled in public school at the third grade level; after his father's hospitalization, Darger was moved to the Mission of Our Lady of Mercy, a Roman Catholic orphanage. After bad behavior, he was relocated to the Illinois Asylum for Feeble-Minded Children in Lincoln, Illinois, also called the Lincoln State School (today the Lincoln Developmental Center), with the diagnosis, according to Stephen Prokopoff, that "little Henry's heart is not in the right place". According to John MacGregor, the diagnosis was actually "self-abuse", a euphemism for masturbation.