Re-Printed from August 23, 2007...what we should remember..

Thursday, August 23, 2007
Messages from the past....remember me...
As I read the comments about my last post,far off in the distance, I could hear the sounds of an old stream drawn train. The long lonesome whistle calls at the stations and crossings, the clicky-clack as those steel wheels inched their way West. I was amazed and moved by comments left regarding ancestors who rode the orphan train. Excellent factual information was provided and a link to a wonderful website that I'm adding to our sidebar. We, the little group participating in this orphan blocks challenge, know what our challenge is about. If there is blame to be placed, ...it is for me. I'm the one who called my quilt 'Riding the Orphan Train', and it was an 'honoring' of same when I did. A sharing of knowledge about those trains, and the stories of the children and the families then created is a much bigger thing.
I wrote to Ann and asked permission to share her comments more publically. She graciously agreed and thanked me.
Ann said...
"My grandmother, Marjorie Peterson, was an orphan train rider. She was indentured as a nanny by a family in MN at the age of 8. The family changed her name from Mary to Marjorie. In her middle years, Grandma wrote her autobiography, which my family knew, but it remained private until her death in 1991 (age 93). I made a quilt in Grandma's memory and use it when I read from her autobiography and tell her heartwarming story to audiences (including quilt guilds!) across the US. An article that I wrote about the orphan trains and her story was published in "Quilters Newsletter Magazine," Jan/Feb 2005. Read the article, see my "orphan train" quilt and learn more on my website at www.crocuslanequilts.com. My book "They Named Me Marjorie" was published in June 2006."

Interesting note: The term "orphan train" is somewhat misleading because Charles Loring Brace/Children's Aid Society and other placement agencies never used this term for their placements but rather The Home Finding Department or Emigration Department. Almost one-third of the children from the CAS may have been placed in New York and never rode a train. The Foundling Hospital sent out "baby" or "mercy" trains. The term orphan train may have been coined as recently as 1978 when CBS aired a miniseries called "The Orphan Trains." Nonetheless, the period from 1854 to 1929 (75 years!)and the adoption/indenture/foster care placement of an estimated 250,000 children was the most significant movement of children in the US and was the genesis of American adoption and foster care programs.

August 19, 2007 9:03 PM Ann's website is www.crocuslanequilts.com

Evelyn of Starfishy Quilting mentioned that Anne in Anne of Green Gables might have been an orphan train rider. From what I remember, Anne came from an orphanage, but I don't think she would have been on the train, as the story is set on Prince Edward Island. The Orphan Train was used in the United States.
Annie, of Little Orphan Annie, altho not an orphan train rider, could have been. The story is was set in the 1920's in New York City. The setting would have been a fairly typical orphanage. There are many examples of how little value these children had in society. One of the American Girl's stories...Samantha, is set about 1904 and deals with a girls orphanage. Again, the conditions are similar to the other stories. The Little Princess is another, And Cider House Rules comes to mind.

We don't have orphans as such, in America anymore. In the dictionary sense, a child is an orphan if there are no parents to claim and take responsibilty for the child. In today's world,it takes a bit of time,but a child left without parents becomes a ward of the State. This "ward-ship" stands(as parent)to the child until they are legally adopted, either by family members or someone who wants them. Three of my chlidren were surrendered to the State of Wisconsin. Two were surrendered to the ward-ship of a private agency.

Hearing the whistle, answering the call.....

as humans we each hear what we hear. You cannot assume that each person hears what you hear. We seem to have, or to develop, a system. Using that system we hear what we want, need or choose to hear. A song that moves your soul, might not even register in my ears or brain. Perhaps the story of the Orphan Trains that carried those 350,000 orphan and abandoned children to new homes has a special appeal because I'm an adoptive parent. Or perhaps it's because, from early childhood, I'm a 'train' person. I think you either 'are' or you aren't. I grew up in a town with 3 active railroads within walking distance of my home. On a bicycle you could get there even faster. I grew up with steam engines. Railroads were a popular and inexpensive way to travel around the state and nation. My father came and went deer hunting with his brothers, in northen WI, on the Soo Line Railroad. If he got a buck, the deer rode home in the box car. I stood, on a gray day, and waved to the British royal, Edward and his new wife. He gave up the throne for love, who knew? I stood on the back porch of my house, and watched and listened as the last steam engine chugged and tooted its way out of Chippewa Falls,WI. Directly behind it came the sleek, shiny new "400", the beginning of a new era in travel. Speed, with no coal or black smoke. The bell ringing out from that last steam engine, was a lonely sound to me. I love trains, I hear the whistle, long, low and lonesome as it passes in the night.I love the clackity-clack of the rails on the tracks. I even liked the black smoke billowing against the sky. Trains were always going somewhere mysterious and wonderful to my child's mind.I've been either a very bad or a very busy Engineer on the Orphan Train. Time for me to re-new my dedication to Orphan Block quilts. Time to get to work and shove some coal into that hopper. This beginnings has waited long enough.
This darling baby is my newest grandson, born February 20th in MN. He's giving his mommy a bit of a rough time these days, you know, eating and sleeping issues? Ya. He's not an orphan, and he is many times blessed that he will live and love with the family of his birth. His Auntie, who holds him in the picture was an orphan, s was his mommy. It's not a word we use much anymore, particularily in the USA. Orphans seem to be those children in Romania, or India, or especially the AIDS affected children in Africa. We have orphans as a result of 9/11, and many other disasters, but we also have a system now, to meet their needs and do the best we can for them. We tend not to think of them as orphans.
How easy it seems to be to forget what has gone before. We blanch while thinking of the nearly 4,000 lives lost on 9/11 or the thousdands of our sons and daughters dying in Iraq. The numbers are staggering, I know. But just for a moment, think about 350,000 children whose lives were changed forever, and not particularily because of the Orphan Trains, but because of the need for them. It wasn't a pretty solution, nor a wonderful one, but it beat the heck out of the alternative for those young ones. Think about alternatives, hear the whistle that sounds for you.