Orphan Train

I am not a family history buff. I haven't checked out my ancestry to see if I'm descended from royalty. I haven't sent my DNA off to find out if my ancestors hail from a different portion of the globe than I've been led to believe. It's that age old nature versus nurture argument. Although I do believe genetics accounts for much of our make-up, both our physical appearance and our intelligence, I'm more inclined to put a greater emphasis on nurture, that is the effect our environment has upon both of these things. So, who my ancestors were and what they did has never really sparked my interest. Other members of my family, though, have done some research. Because of them I have a copy of my husband's family tree and, on my side of the family, some relatives wrote a little booklet about my Dad's family going back to the time they immigrated to the U.S.A.

 

I do love a historical novel though, and the one I just read, "Orphan Train" by Christina Baker Kline, struck a family history chord for me. It was one of those books I couldn't put down until I was finished. 

Here's a short synopsis of the novel - In the late 1800's and early 1900's orphans were put on a train heading west from New York, then paraded at stops along the rail line in front of prospective "parents", some of whom were just shopping for free labor. Sometimes these  children experienced horrible circumstances in their "adoptive" homes. This work of fiction drew some subtle comparisons between the orphans of that time and the foster children of today. 

The connection to my family? My fraternal grandmother rode that orphan train. Thanks to my aunt, my sister and two cousins, this is what I know about my grandmother Christina's early life. Her birth parents immigrated from Germany in the 1870's and on arrival found deplorable conditions - disease and crime; dirty, noisy, unsafe buildings; very little work to be had with wages too low to support a family. My great grandmother and one of her children contracted Typhoid Fever and died. The other children including Christina were very young and my great grandfather was unable to take care of them.

The children were taken to the New York Foundling Hospital which was run by the Sisters of Charity. In the book "Orphan Train", Niamh, the heroin of the story, was in the care of the Children's Aid Society. Unlike the Children's Aid Society which simply sent children along with no sure prospect of being adopted, the Sisters of Charity sent children by train to pre-approved homes. Christina was sent from New York to Cleveland. The first home she went to turned out to be a disaster. When the agent in charge discovered this he found another home for her. Finally she felt like she belonged to a family. She was now the youngest of 8 children in a happy home. Later, when her adoptive parents died she went to live with her older sister and her brother-in-law. When she was a teen she apprenticed at a dressmaker's shop. There she met her future husband, a mechanic who worked on the Pullman cars on the railroad. She had 11 children, one girl died at birth, another girl died at age four. The remainder lived on to become my two aunts, six uncles, and my Dad.

When asked about her birth family, Christina thought she may have had a brother who went on to Missouri. Records were poor, a fire caused the loss of many, but the National Orphan Train Complex of Kansas named her parents and suggested that she had two sisters, Marie Elizabeth, who went to St. Louis, and Pauline about whom nothing is known. It is not known if this is accurate. Her family history remains a mystery.

Many thanks to my cousin for compiling this information for our family. She goes on to tell stories of our grandmother when she was a young mother which gives me a window into my Dad's early days.

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I downloaded "Orphan Train" from an on-line book club called BookBub.com. Membership is free. You receive a daily e-mail with a listing of Limited Time-Free E-Books & Bargain Ebooks -  Mystery, Romance, Fantasy, How-to, Science Fiction, Biographies, History and more. When you sign-up you are asked to tick off the types of books you like so that suggestions they send will be in line with your reading interests. They can be downloaded onto your device via Apple iBook, Amazon, Kobo or Google. Books that are not free are rarely over $3. Some of the books I've read were not all that great, some were a casual light read, and some, like "Orphan Train" were special.