For Masonic Home alumni, themes hit close as they watch ‘12 Mighty Orphans’ together

In a scene near the end of “12 Mighty Orphans,” quarterback C.D. Sealey’s mother arrives at the Masonic Home to retrieve her son from the orphanage and appears to expect him to walk out with her as if they had not been traumatically separated.

Sealey had built a new life at the Fort Worth school and was on its football team in what the film describes as an improbably strong run of games in the fall of 1938, but was actually a composite of several seasons. Sealey declines to leave with his mother. She does not receive the rejection well, whacking his face with her hand.

Watching a movie screen in Lake Worth on Friday night, Charlie Cloud said he saw a bit of himself in Sealey. Cloud, who is 60 and lives in Weatherford, had a troubled early life. His father left when his mother was pregnant and carrying him.

Cloud’s single mother struggled, and she thought the orphanage-school offered a good opportunity for Cloud and his two older brothers. When he was 6 years old, Cloud left his broken home for the Masonic home.

He, too, was approached by his mother about coming home after years away, but like Sealey, Cloud and his brothers did not want to leave.

“You couldn’t have drove us out of there with a stick,” he said.

Cloud was one of about 450 people who watched the new film, which was shot in Fort Worth and stars Luke Wilson and Martin Sheen, on three screens at the same time Friday night at Texas Movie Bistro. Many were alumni of the Masonic Home, where the Mighty Mites commanded Texas high school football in the 1930s and 1940s. They nibbled on cookies after the movie.

The school was dissolved in 2005, but the Masonic Home Ex-Students Association still holds reunions.

One of its members, Jerry Beck, 80, arrived at the Masonic Home in 1952 when he was 11. His mother had died of pneumonia and his father of a heart attack.

After watching the movie Friday night, he recalled the school’s strong educators. “They took care of you in every way possible,” he said.

Another alumnus, Roy Jacks, 79, who lives near Beaumont, said the movie stirred deep emotion.

“It brought up a lot of memories,” he said.