We Rode the Orphan Trains

by Andrea Warren

Overview

Listen to child orphans as they share their memories of transition and adventure, disappointment and loneliness, but ultimately of the joy of belonging to their own new families.

They were “throwaway” kids, living in the streets or in orphanages and foster homes. Then Charles Loring Brace, a young minister working with the poor in New York City, started the Children’s Aid Society and devised a plan to give homeless children a chance to find families to call their own.

Thus began an extraordinary migration of American children. Between 1854 and 1929, an estimated 200,000 children, mostly from New York and other cities of the eastern United States, ventured forth to other states on a journey of hope.

Andrea Warren has shared the stories of some of these orphan train riders here, including those of Betty, who found a fairy tale life in a grand hotel; Nettie Evans and her twin, Nellie, who were rescued from their first abusive placement and taken in by a new, kindhearted family who gave them the love they had hoped for; brothers Howard and Fred, who remained close even though they were adopted into different families; and Edith, who longed to know the secrets of her past.

"This is powerful nonfiction for classroom and personal reading and for discussion." (School Library Journal starred review)

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780618432356
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	03/23/2004
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	144
Product dimensions:	7.50(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.46(d)
Lexile:	940L (what's this?)
Age Range:	10 - 12 Years

About the Author

Andrea Warren is the author of many acclaimed nonfiction books for young readers, including Orphan Train Rider: One Boy's True Story, which won the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award. Andrea lives in Kansas. Visit her website at www.andreawarren.com.

Table of Contents

	Introduction	1
Chapter 1	Homes for Homeless Children	3
Chapter 2	Agent Clara Comstock's Mission	23
Chapter 3	Twins Who Just Wanted to Be Loved: Nettie and Nellie Crook, Riders to Kansas, 1911	32
Chapter 4	Blessed by Six Parents: Sister Justina Bieganek, Rider to Minnesota, 1913	44
Chapter 5	A Lonely Little Girl: Ruth Hickok, Rider to Iowa, 1917	56
Chapter 6	The Baby in the Basket: Art Smith, Rider to Iowa, 1922	67
Chapter 7	A Case of Scandalous Neglect: Howard Hurd and Fred Swedenburg, Riders to Nebraska, 1925	80
Chapter 8	A Place Called Home: Bill Oser, Rider to Michigan, 1925	96
Chapter 9	The Cutest Child in Kentucky: Betty Murray, Rider to Kentucky, 1930	109
Chapter 10	Into the Future	122
	Recommended Reading	125
	Sources Used in This Book	127
	Index	129

Editorial Reviews

"This is powerful nonfiction for classroom and personal reading and for discussion." — School Library Journal (starred review)

"As fascinating as the original and a worthy sequel." — Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

Warren (Orphan Train Rider) here interviews eight orphan train riders concerning their childhood experiences during "the largest children's migration in history" between 1854 and 1929 as part of a "placing out" program run by the Children's Aid Society of New York City. The stories reflect the diversity of the train itself, from Nettie, who discusses how she and her identical twin, Nellie, escaped their first sadistic adoptive mother to find a loving home with an older couple, to Art Smith, whose daydreams of an actress mother were shattered when he discovered he was a baby "left in a basket in Gimbel's Department Store." Many of the profiles include well-chosen details that will tug at readers' heartstrings, such as Sister Justina, who celebrated the wrong birth date for 57 years, or little Ruth, who initially refused to take her arms off the dinner table after years of protecting her food from grabby, hungry orphans. Black-and-white photographs effectively highlight the stories. Though some of the accounts focus too much on adult discoveries, ultimately the anecdotes about these brave and lonely children will keep readers traveling on this train. Ages 9-12. (Sept.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

Gr 4-8-Warren's story of nine-year-old Lee Nailling in Orphan Train Rider (Houghton, 1996) opened a window onto a disturbing period of American history in which children were both victims and heroes. In this follow-up volume, she relates the personal histories of eight men and women-now senior citizens-who were orphaned or abandoned as children and later traveled across the country in trains to meet strangers who would become their new family members. An introductory chapter describes the appalling numbers of homeless children in 19th-century America's large eastern cities and explains how poverty and disease as well as high rates of alcohol and drug addiction contributed to a problem that continued into the 20th century. The personal histories, based on interviews that Warren conducted with her subjects, are rich and compelling and so full of dramatic twists and turns that they could have been conceived by Charles Dickens. Hunger, fear, and isolation are the most common recollections of the men and women who speak from these pages. Fortunately these stories all have happy endings, testimony to the resilience of children and the kindness of strangers. The author also includes information about early social activists such as Charles Loring Brace, who established New York City's Children's Aid Society in 1853. These remarkable stories have enormous human-interest appeal and will provoke serious discussion about just how much life has really changed for children from the last century until today.-William McLoughlin, Brookside School, Worthington, OH Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

School Library Journal

From 1854 to 1930, more than 200,000 orphaned or abandoned boys and girls were cleaned up, dressed in new clothes, and turned over to the custody of the agents of the Children's Aid Society. These groups of children traveled on "orphan trains" and arrived at the towns of the Midwest and South with the expectation that they would be placed in loving homes. In this companion volume to the award winning Orphan Train Rider: One Boy's True Story (1996), Warren smoothly recounts seven more stories gathered from interviews and archival research. After a short introduction, she describes the hardship of the neglected and abused children and then the simple plan of finding homes in the West for "homeless children." Warren begins with the account of Clara Comstock, a former schoolteacher who as an agent made more than 72 trips on the orphan trains. The subjects, now in their late 70s to 90s, look back to their common experiences. Often no one told them why they were going on a train or what was happening; some had happy endings; still others fared not so well. Each chapter has a similar format: one train rider's story-earliest memories, the departure and train ride, being trouped out in front of strangers, being chosen, what happened their first day of placement, what happened to their siblings, visits from the agents, and the search for their origins. Generously illustrated with black-and-white photographs of people and places as well as reproductions of original source material. As fascinating as the original and a worthy sequel. (index, sources) (Nonfiction. 9-12)

Kirkus Reviews