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Written by Julie
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Saturday, 16 August 2008 23:58 |
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This week I found out something new about my husbands family history. His great grandmother was an orphan train rider. We don't know much about her because like most of the other OTR's she didn't like to talk about her past. She died in 1952 so I'm not sure how much information the family will get on her. I made a call to the New York Foundling Hospital (they adopted her out) yesterday and found out that if we can show proof that Brian is related to her and give them her date of birth they should be able to help us locate any information they have on her. I'm not sure what questions they could answer. It would be nice to know something about her. From what I understand once she was adopted she was treated pretty badly. She didn't speak about it once she married Brian's great grandfather so no one in the family knows much. I'll admit before hearing what little the family knows of her story I knew nothing of the Orphan Train Riders. What I've found out since is heart breaking. There were so many children on the streets of New York and single parents that felt like they couldn't take care of the children, or abusive parents that had their children taken away. Several orphanages put these kids on trains and sent them out to the mid-west. One of the ways they did this was someone would write in saying they wanted a blond haired, blue eyed little girl, or whatever and the nuns would do their best to find a match. They would then send a receipt with a number and a time the train was to arrive. When the train got to the station the adoptive parents would had over the receipt and the nuns would check it against the children's number pinned to there clothes. What's worse is that most of the children were not adopted out to loving homes but used as laborers. Unfortunately what I imagine began as a program to rescue these orphans and give them a home turned into something so awful they were ashamed to speak of it. I'm sad that not many people know about this because it is a part of our American History. To live a life like must have been awful.
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