What's new???

This handsome bag is new, for one thing...*VBS* It was made by Michele.She is the current reader of our orphan train book "They Named Me Marjorie".The book has been on the 'move' around blogland, traveling from Orphan Train volunteer to volunteer. It began it's journey with Tracey,Quilting in Conn. She graciously sent it on to Carol.From Carol E. the book came to me, Finn.I'm loving this idea!
Here is what Michele has to say about her bag:"I even used a scrap practice piece...the appliqued heart..that I was testing thread tension on. The meandering on it was awful! All it was, or was meant to be was a thread tester! But an orphan is an orphan and needs to be loved. So, I grabbed it and put her on the front of the bag and loved her anyway! The rest are the odds and ends leftover from my own Orphan Train quilt."
The book is a great read. Interesting, moving and certainly holds you captive til you see how it all come out. With limited eye sight, I'm not much of a reader anymore, but I read it from cover to cover and would have read more if there was more! I chose Michele to receive it next.
Since Michele has been in the Land of Insomia lately, she read it pretty much all at one sitting...*S* She wrote a lovely report of the book and you can read that at her blog. She felt a bag made from her bits of leftover orphans was needed before it left Oregon.The book is now traveling to Jeanne.Carol E's idea is for the book to travel to as many of the Orphan Train volunteers(those who are working with their orphan blocks and get published here)as possible. I love Carol's idea. I had included a newspaper clipping from Carol E's St. Paul, MN newspaper regarding the reunion of Orphan Train riders from Minnesota. They had their reunion this past summer. If Google Orphan Train you will find lots of information including history, pictures, and a list of nation wide reunions of those children who rode those trains west. Of the over 300,000, only a small number are still alive today. It all happened between the 1850's and the early 1900's.
If you are interested in the book, click on the Crocus Hills link up on my side bar under Special Connections. It was written by the granddaughter of Marjorie.
Michele chose to add the travel bag to the 'trip' the book is taking. If you have something appropiate or meanful, please feel free to include it when you send the book onward.
Postage to where ever you send it is up to each individual. If you have no one to send it onward to, please contact Carol E. and return the book to her. Hugs for everyone, Finn

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 ever 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 they 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.

Looking deeper.....and thinking about things

If you know me,then you know that's a normal 'way' of being in the world for me. I have many words inside my head, it takes time for them all to surface. Not all can be shared, but these can and should be. THIS IS MY QUILT. It is not a kit, a pattern nor remotely a copy of anyone elses work. I don't 'why' it came to be, but I know why I called it "Orphan Train, Heading West". I don't think my quilt is remarkable,nor even especially noteworthy. It is deeply, deeply personal. Much more than just using the leftovers.
"The Orphan Train, Heading West" is my personal creation. The odd, unwanted, extra "stuff" is not so different from thousands of children rounded up in New York City, Washington DC, Chicago and other large cities, and sent west. They were placed on a train that stopped in many of the small towns along the way.
The town folks gathered on railroad platforms or in churches, to see if there was a child that they could/would take "home". This is NOT fiction, nor a story, the Orphan Train traveled back and forth, from the late 1850's, until the 1930's, removing orphaned and unwanted children from city streets. The street kids were a by-product of the huge immigration(to America)from Eurpose. Immigrant parents found this wasn't a land where streets were lined with gold after all. Many children were forced out of the homes and onto the streets as the family size grew.It was sink or swim, take care of yourself or perish. As a human being, I have strong feelings about this, and being an adoptive parent doubles those feelings. Unwanted children.

There are thousands of websites about aspects of The Orphan Trains. Many are on a "state by state" basis. There are actual records of children who rode those trains, and sometimes interviews with them as adults. You know that someone who rode in the 1920's or 1930's could very well be alive yet today. There was just ONE Orphan Train. Many actual engines and cars were used over those 70 years, but the 'concept' belong to Rev. Charles Brace who founded the Children's Aid Society. Other orphanages were involved in placement and in gathering children to be cleaned up, fed and sent west. Children were "gathered in", taken care of in orphanages and "held" until there were enough to fill the train. Several sponsors were needed to ride west and supervise the children along the way. They were also the 'records' keepers from town to town.
I don't want anyone who reads this blog, to TRIVIALIZE,in any way, the very seriousiness of The Orphan Train. Nor the aspect of what was decided for these children by our society. I believe, that like adoption today, it's the "least worst" solution to the circumstances. In the wealth of our nation today, it's easy to become immune to the faces and needs of the less fortunate. Easy to let "someone else" take care of it. I'm endorsing the gathering up and gentle using of the quilt blocks we find just 'littering' our boxes and baskets. The 'moving' them into a more suitable and useful setting, but NOT FOR A MOMENT, do I forget that the Orphan Train of history was a REAL DEAL.
We'd have to make alot of quilts to come close to the 150,000 to 200,000 children that were moved across America in those 70+ years.This last picture if a map of the USA, of course. The lines indicate the routes of and cities included in the gathering, carrying and moving of those children.
I spent much time reading, the past night or two, at Orphan Train web sites. I noticed that Minnesota(my neighbor) took in over 3,000 of these children. Wisconsin took 2,000 plus. Oregon took 19. Poplulation and farming seemed to play a role in how many found home in a particular state.The children ranged from infant to young adult.
Many of the websites EMPHASIZE that these children were only 'half' orphan..that they had parents in many cases who couldn't care for them. I don't thinka definition of actual status is the point. I believe you can be a 'motherless child' while having a living mother, and you can be an orphan in the sense that you are unwanted, or found to be 'wanting' in some way. My quilt blocks are orphans in their unsuitable, not beautiful enough, imperfect ways.....but every one of them has a use.

Orphan Train..what the heck is that?????

It's just what it sounds like, a train carrying orphans. In our day and age, it's not that we don't have orphans, but we have a 'system' for addressing their aloneness. That hasn't always been the case. Before I tell you about that, and the origins of the TRUE ORPHAN TRAIN, I should tell you how personally involved I am with the 'orphan' concept. Most of you know my new friend, Ebby. What you see in the blog pictures looks like a perfectly lovely cat that anyone could/would love. And that's true and not true. Ebby is "a-social", meaning she is scared to death of everyone she encounters, and every situation that occurs. It's nothing I was expecting or prepared for when I said I would take her. I couldn't have imagined a cat, who had lived with 'people', indoors, a pet, being as isolated as she keeps herself. Certainly NOT what I had hoped for when I decided I needed a companion. I was delighted with the speed and efficiency the Universe answered my petition for a middle aged cat. I was SO very specific in what I wanted. Read about it back in Sept and Oct. of 2006 over at Pieces From my scrapbag..link on the sidebar. I sort of forgot to add friendly and loving to my list of requirements....OL
What I have come to recently is, that if I hadn't taken her, and she'd gone to a shelter, she never would have even been put UP for adoption. She wants nothing to do with anybody she doesn't know, and would have 'flunked' the socialized test. She was left an orphan in the most cruel way..unprepared for the world she lives in. She's been with me 10 months now, and we have made progress in socialization. She has gotten to know me enough to trust me when I call her, or reach down to touch her. But she's still a very nervous Nellie, jumping at noises outside, and running from the sound of a car door closing.
But on to the reason for the post....
The saga of the Orphan Trains that left New York carrying unwanted children west across America, in hopes of finding them homes. It sounds like a happy one, but I have serious doubts about that. Being forced to leave what little security they had in the familiar, and only 'hope' that they would find a home with a 'good' family and not a 'slave master in the making'.

In 1853 there were over 30,000 immigrant children living in the streets of New York City. A seminarian, Charles L. Brace, founded the Children's Aid Society, and for the next 70 years transported children west to America's frontiers in hopes of a family for each of them. Over 200,000 children rode that train, heading west. One must believe some of them found good, loving homes.
In the 1980's a special was, in documentary form, for TV. The narrator was a Mrs. Fuchs, who had been an orphan train child. Her story, while mostly bittersweet in it's portrait of her life, touched my heart. As an adoptive mom to 5, it's hard for me to accept that there wss NO goodness shown any of the children. And so I wrote to her, and she answered my letter. It was a lovely reply, and I wish I remembered her words, or that I still had the letter.

Jeanette Oke, who writes the Christian based books such as Love Comes Softly, which was made into a mini series on the Hallmark Channel writes of similiar happening in her books. The series follows the young daughter into marriage and parenthood. In one episode, the town is called to gather at the church in preparation for meetin the Orphan Train which will be arriving that day.
The children are literally paraded in front of the residents, and 'looked over' like livestock, in hopes of a home within that community. You can imagine the humiliation at standing there for inspection and being passed over as many children were.."too old, too young, only one child not both of you, a handicap, a lisp, crossed eyes, to thin" the list was long. And if you weren't selected, back on the train til the next community.
I believe there have been one or two episodes on Little House on the Prairie about the Orphan Train as well, altho no mention is ever made of it in the Little House books. The time period is right, and no doubt the train may have stopped in a community where the Ingalls lived.
If you would want to know more about the 'real deal', and not just my fanciful name for using my unloved and abandoned blocks, Google Orphan Train, or the name of the seminarian, Charles L. Brace, or Children's Aid Society, still active today.
There are some books on the subject, and one trilagy that I know of, but can't remember the author off hand. I'll have to look and see if I can find the book. The second book, which I have, is called "The Little Sparrows". I found it on the library book sale which is why I have only the 2nd one.

Orphan blocks, like refugee children are not held in very high regard.I feel those blocks are another link to our quilting heritage. Not every child is beautiful or wanted, but that doesn't mean they don't have a purpose. I'm not much of a "planner" when it comes to quilts. I'm more likely to figure out how a block is pieced, and then pull scraps and begin making them. Sometimes it becomes a quilt, and sometimes I just don't like it well enough to make alot of them. Sometimes I make way too many...LOL. And Orphans are born!!

To end on a happy note, I will say that I'm delighted to be part of Blog Land where I've found sooooo many others who just have to 'rescue' things...kittens, old quilts, abandoned mirrors (*VBG*) and the like. It's good to know you have company!