December 20, 2019 • 43 mins
Between 1854 and 1929, 250,000 orphans - at peril in the dangerous, overcrowded streets of New York - were placed on trains and sent west to live with new families. A desperate solution to a desperate problem, some of the stories turned out well and some far from well. The bond between the riders lives on in their descendants, many of whom continue to search for answers about their ancestry. Mo talks to the daughter of a rider, plumbs the CBS News archives for voices of the riders themselves, and tracks down the last survivor.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hi, my name is Addie Skillman, and this is Loving
versus Virginia, the stepping stone for equality in America. Every year,
at the National History Day Contest, middle and high school
kids from across the country gathered to compete, presenting on
a range of historical topics, turning the Times, reward of
(00:22):
victory rise, the appeal, taking a stand against prohibition, Root
sixty six, Road of Possibilities, what costs a Louis Chaplin,
Missouri alcoholicy? It's as pretty to get your kids at
sixty six. But the topic that grabbed my attention was
one presented by a fifteen year old from Minnesota, Claire Isaacson.
(00:46):
Orphan Train to compromise the children on the right trucks.
I'd never heard of the Orphan Train, but from her
first line, Claire had me hooked. Your parents are not
your parents, Your past is not your past. Your life
begins when you are chosen. Your life begins when you
(01:12):
were chosen, an apt way to describe the Orphan Train,
mostly forgotten nineteenth century movement that rescued abandoned children from
the crowded streets of East Coast cities and delivered them
by train to new families. Across the country. In her presentation,
Claire channeled real life orphan train rider Victoria Moe, a
(01:34):
child of Irish immigrants, as she made the trip west.
We cross our fingers and pray that we get a
loving home. Many older children were scared and tried to run.
Our pasts were left behind on that train station. We
were going to have a totally different life in our
new homes. I spoke to Claire after her performance, and
(02:01):
I'm a little embarrassed that I'd never even heard of
this before. Yeah, I know, it's crazy, and that's why
I'm thankful that I did the topics, so I can
hopefully make more people know about it, because it's really
a secret and kind of hidden. How big was this movement? Well,
(02:21):
a quarter million children. We're moved west from eighteen fifty
four to nineteen twenty nine. A quarter million people. That's
like the population of Cleveland. That's a lot of people.
As I dug into our archives at CBS News, more
voices began to surface, voices of orphan train riders from
years past, all of them children who had been lifted
(02:45):
from dire situations and scattered across the country for hope
of a better life. They sent me out west to
Colorado Springs. I went to Wayne County. I had never
heard of anything ar Kansas. In this episode, we'll tell
you the story of the largest mass migration of children
(03:08):
in American history. And I'll travel to Texas to talk
to the last known surviving orphan train rider. They took
you when you were such a little baby, the smallest,
smallest train from CBS Sunday Morning and Simon and Schuster.
I'm Morocca and this is mobituaries. This mobit the Orphan Train.
(03:37):
May thirty first, nineteen twenty nine, death of an American experiment.
Extra Extra read all about it. The Boston molasses disaster
of nineteen nineteen. It's a slow reader. If you happen
(03:57):
to be outside Penn Station in New York City last tune,
you might have seen a familiar face. What else extract
Star read all about it. Warren Harding dead. It was
the one hundredth anniversary of the New York Daily News,
and I had joined their street team for the day
to pass out papers. Look, I love any opportunity to
(04:17):
need to shout random historical facts at strangers. Extractor read
all about it. The Sultan, the swat traded to the
Yankees called the Babe Newsy Walt. I love the Baboruth thing,
but I also wanted to get a feel for what
it was like to be a Newsy on the streets
of New York. You know, newsies, they're the plucky, dancing
(04:38):
paperboys from that Disney musically loved, But it turns out
it wasn't all song and dance. Newsies worked long hours
on poor wages. Most of them were abandoned children, and
in the mid eighteen hundreds, New York City had a
(05:00):
crisis of abandoned children. Enter Charles Loring Brace. Charles Loring Brace,
from a young age to his dying day, really tried
to be the best he could be for others. Sherley
George is the head curator of the National Orphan Train
Complex in Concordia, Kansas. And to tell the story of
(05:21):
the Orphan Train, you have to tell the story of
Charles Loring Brace, who was born in eighteen twenty six
into a well to do family in Lichfields, Connecticut. What
was he raised to do? Yeah? Well, his father, who
was a teacher, thought that Charles would follow in his footsteps,
and he thought, okay, Charles is going to be a teacher,
and then Charles decides to be a pastor. But then
(05:43):
he realizes that you don't have to be a pastor
that stands behind a pulpit. The patrician Charles was going
to become a missionary, an idea that greatly concerned his father,
because being a pastor, you know, it's kind of nice,
you get invited over to dinner, You've got a nice
place where you live. But I mean, when you're missionary,
you're kind of rolling up your sleeves and getting out there.
He truly jumped into the depths that were being ignored.
(06:08):
In the eighteen fifties, mass immigration from Europe, mostly Irish
and German Catholics, overwhelmed New York City. Poor sanitation and
wild pigs roaming the streets spread diseases like cholera and tuberculosis.
Non Existent labor laws meant unsustainable wages and unsafe working conditions,
(06:29):
And while the wretched state of affairs touched people of
all ages, children felt the effects hardest. There was infanticide
happening in New York where these kids were actually literally
dying in the streets in the gutters. These babies were
tossed out of homes. Renee Wendinger has written several books
(06:50):
about the orphan train movement. She has a personal connection
to the subject. Her mother, Sophia, was a rider. Have
you ever wondered what would have happened here mother had
she stayed in New York. I don't think in that
time frame she would have survived. Charles Loring Brace was
determined to help. Remember the newsies. He created lodging houses
(07:13):
for them, but there were far more children in need
than there were jobs for newsboys. Give me a sense
of the scale of the problem. At one point they
say ten thousand kids are on the street. At another turn,
it's thirty thousand, thirty thousand homeless children at a time
when New York had fewer than six hundred thousand people total.
(07:35):
Charles Loring Brace saw all this firsthand. It's eighteen fifty
three in the February of that year. He starts going
out into the streets and quickly realizes that we're spending
more money imprisoning children because you could be arrested for
being a vagrant child, and he wants to help. Now.
Orphanages existed back then, but they were overcrowded and so
(07:59):
called poor houses put children and adults together, a dangerous
situation for kids, So maybe it was best to get
them out of New York altogether. He really believed in
the idea of getting kids out of the city and
out of vice. Vice. It seems like the perfect word
what he sees going on in the cities of these kids.
(08:20):
He just sees it as kind of a cauldron of sinfulness, basically.
But he really doesn't see a way for children to
grow up and not be touched by it, not be
drawn into it, to live in an orphanage and then
be let out at eighteen, and not fall into a prison.
So Brace comes up with a plan to move children
(08:43):
on mass to a place where they'll stand a better chance.
Put simply, Charles Laying Brace says, We're going to put
some kids on a train. Yeah. In eighteen fifty three,
Brace founds the Children's Aid Society to help carry out
his grand plan. First, he needs to find people willing
to take in abandoned children. He basically selects a community
(09:06):
where he knows someone. They're going to go through that
church and require that people who apply for them bring
two references from their pastor and from their courthouse, and
they're going to place them out under the guardianship of
the Children's Aid Society. Why is he confident that they're
even going to be placed I think he truly believed
(09:26):
that people weren't going to come to New York and
take kids out of orphanages. But if he brought them
to them, put them in their face, there was no
way they could say no, And so he took a chance.
Brace makes a deal with a pastor he knows in
the small town of Dowagiac, Michigan, and the Children's Aid
(09:47):
Society begins to gather the forty five children who will
be the passengers on the first orphan train. The majority
come from the New York Juvenile Asylum, and technically that
first train we now know by historical records, is paid
for in half by children they had studiy near juvel
Asylum or any of the kids coerced, pressured or is
(10:11):
this something that they all wanted. It's seemingly like they
wanted it, But of course what's the alternative now? Orphan
train is a slight misnomer. It takes multiple trains and
boats to get from New York City to Michigan. For
many of these children, it's their first time ever leaving
New York City. How scary that must have been on
(10:33):
the choppy water and the cliffs and how many trees
there are. Yeah, for these kids, it must have been
like going to another planet. Oh. Absolutely. A memory of
this kind of crossing even made it into Claire's Orphan
Train performance, I've been crossing the Hudson River. I wonder
that filled our eyes. Oh we had to receive sorrowing pain.
(10:57):
What a new world this was for us. The children
arrive and to watch yak in late September eighteen fifty four,
and no one, not the children, not their caretaker, not
the townspeople, really knows what to expect. So they get
off the train and to watch yac and then what happens.
The kids are so excited. They're finally in Michigan, their
(11:17):
final destination, and they take off. That's right, they run
in all directions. Look, they're kids, they've been cooped up
on a train for days. Their caretaker can't keep up.
He just goes to wait for them at the hotel.
Finally the kids start rolling in and they have stolen
everything green apples and pumpkins and acorns, and have shoved
(11:40):
grass and leaves up their shirts, up their shirt sleeves,
in their hats, down their pants, in their pockets because
they're so excited. They've never seen everything where it grows.
And I'm curious, do they know that you're not supposed
to steal? Possibly not, And I'm trying to imagine what
the people in the town are thinking. I bet they're alarmed.
(12:05):
They probably are alarmed. The people of Dowagiac, after all,
are scheduled to meet the Orphan train riders that day
at church. You can imagine that already they're regretting welcoming
the orphans to town. But when they get to church,
they're greeted with a surprise. The first thing that they
(12:26):
really hear from the kids are our Sunday hymns, and
they are singing Kumye Center's poor and needy. The kids
went over the town. They're placed within a week, all
of them, So this first ride had to be considered
(12:47):
a success. Absolutely. Two months later, a second train leaves
New York and the Orphan Train movement begins in earnest
and now a pop quiz because I love pop quizzes.
It's easy to overlook, but so much of America's history innovation, arts,
(13:09):
and entertainment politics has been driven by individuals who grew
up adopted or in foster families. I'm going to give
you some clues, and you have to guess which famous
orphan I'm describing. If you get two out of three,
you win. There are no prizes. Our first clue before this,
former president, Stanford graduate and self made millionaire was roasted
(13:33):
in the Broadway musical Annie for his role presiding over
the Great Depression. He was raised by distant relatives in
Oregon after losing both of his parents to pneumonia. It's
Herbert Hoover fun Backed. One of his nicknames was the Hermit,
(13:56):
author of Palo Alto. Next. This fast food mogul, whose
grandma's advice not to cut corners inspired his decision to
make his iconic burghers square instead of round. Was adopted
as a baby and used his wealth and influence to
help others with childhoods like his, creating a foundation that
(14:17):
still supports foster children around the country. I'm Dave Thomas.
I started Wendy's were One restaurant. It's Dave Thomas fon fact.
Before he created Wendy's, he was the mastermind behind the
fried Chicken bucket that put KFC on the map. Finally,
this adopted child would become famous at the ripe old
(14:40):
age of ten, playing the lead role in a series
about a family living on the prairie in Minnesota in
the eighteen seventies. I decided something, what's that happening? Home
is the nicest word there is. It's Melissa Gilbert. Her show,
Little House on the Prairie would have stori lines were
(15:00):
evolving around orphans throughout its run, including one played by
friend of the podcast, Chase and Bateman. Well, we hope
you meant what you said about how you want us
to stay, because that's what we want to Speaking of
little houses and prairies, let's get back on that orphan train.
(15:22):
As the Children's Aid Society grew, it sent hundreds, then
thousands of children all across the country. Now almost none
of the riders are alive today. But back in nineteen
seventy nine, my CBS Sunday Morning colleague, the great Martha Tischner,
interviewed sisters Anna and Margaret Fuchs. They and their third sister, Helen,
(15:42):
rode the orphan train when they were just ten nine
and seven years old, they were orphaned after losing both
their parents to tuberculosis. Margaret remembered seeing their mother's burial.
The thing that really got to me was seeing that
coffin being lord, and I can remember trying to jump
into that grave because that was my mother down there.
(16:05):
When the children were put on a train in nineteen
twenty four, they didn't even know where they were headed.
As Anna remembered, had very strong ideas that I was
going to California. I didn't know there was any other
stake besides New York and California, as far as I
was concerned. Margaret described their arrival in the tiny town
(16:27):
of McPherson, Kansas. First thing I did was to look around.
How come they letting us out in the middle of nowhere.
I couldn't see any buildings. I was looking for skyscrapers.
Whenever orphans sent by the Society arrived at their destination,
they were lined up on a train platform or on
the stage of a theater so that families could walk
down the line and pick out their preferred kid. As
(16:50):
author Renee Wendinger explains, this process actually gave rise to
a familiar turn of phrase. Some of the children would
have stood on a little box called the soapbox, and
that's how the term put up for adoption became known
as we know it today. If it sounds impersonal, well
that's an understatement. Here's how fifteen year old Claire Isaacson
(17:12):
described it in her National History Day performance. These were
usually chised first, then a tougher, stronger looking voice. Us
girls were usually chosen last. We watched people come and
go and inspect of the children. We saw them looking
at their teeth and even having some boys to push us.
(17:33):
Martha Teichner asked Anna Fuchs about her experience. Did you
ever feel any outrage or any anger at the fact
that you were being kind of lined up there and say, okay,
I got a kid. No, I don't think so. I
think it's a matter of you sort of blame yourself
for having lost your folks. The sisters were all selected,
(17:55):
but by different families. How big a thought was that
when you were standing there the day that you were
both selected by families, seeing each other and seeing goodbyes
and wondering what's going to happen. I think it was
sort of the case that there was so much confusion
and all that We didn't really have that much chance
(18:16):
to think about it, did we. I don't think the
thought entered my mind at all until I got third
and sat on that step ladder in the kitchen, and
then it finally hit me. You are alone. That was
when you started, and that's when I start in Sibling
(18:37):
separation was an added trauma thousands of orphan writers suffered
over the years. Were you scared? Yes, I think we
just wanted to be sure that we were going to
be close enough together so that we get to wouldn't
lose each other. Why was that so important? What was it?
(18:57):
We were a family, and that was all the family
there were. Even though Anna and Margaret were both taken
in by families in the same town, their lives took
very different turns. Anna became extremely close to her new mother,
Jenny Bankston. She was a person I could trust when
I first came here. When I came out here, that
(19:19):
was one thing I did not trust anyone. I had
lost faith in people. I really feel like I've had
two mothers. Margaret, meanwhile, was taken in by the Runnyan
family who ran a local boarding house. They enlisted Margaret
to help with cleaning and cooking for guests. It was
a pretty cold, business like relationship. I always had the
(19:42):
feeling that I was there in place of a maid.
Now these weren't formal adoptions, at least not at first,
but the families writers ended up with were bound by contract.
Parents had to make sure the children went to school
and church. There were expectations for the kids as well. Yes,
the child had to be a child and listen to
(20:03):
those parents and help bat around the house, and a
household at that moment operated like a little business, whether
you were the birth child, or the adopted child, or
the foster child. Basically, what you're saying is being a
kid in the nineteenth century wasn't very fun. No, no,
absolutely not. But that didn't make it any easier for
orphaned children hoping to find a family. Arriving to one
(20:25):
like Margaret's was hard. I honestly don't remember what I
called him mom and dad, or what I call him mister,
miss Brennan. What does I tell you about your experience? Well,
it just that there wasn't that kind of love there,
or affection of any kind. Does it hurt you that
you never had that? Does it? Oh? Yes, yes, particularly
(20:49):
when I knew the kind of a home that Anna
was him where she was getting that kind of affection
at all. Margaret's situation wasn't rare, but spurred by the
Children's Aid Society's success, other organizations began to follow suit,
and in eighteen sixty nine, the second largest orphan train
(21:10):
institution began. Earlier, I quizzed you on some of America's
most prominent real life orphans, but they're not nearly as
famous as some fictional orphans. Remember that Herbert Hoover song
from about ten minutes ago, Well, it's from a musical
centered around an orphan. Why any kid would want to
(21:32):
be an orphan is beyond me. Little Orphan Annie was
a star, first of comic strips, then of the Broadway stage.
In my opinion, the nineteen eighty two movie is only
worth mentioning for Carol Burnett's Miss Hannigan. And if this
(21:52):
floor don't shine, I could talk with the Presner building
or backside? Will you stand yes? Miss Hagen? On television,
the nineteen eighties, As It Happens, were a boom time
for orphan centered sitcoms, starting with Arnold and Willis on
Different Strokes, Don't Get too used at his place, and
(22:17):
there was Punky Brewster. What does Manu and Womy? It's
flow with me. Nothing's wrong with you. You don't want me,
neither my mom that's why she did me and who
could forget Webster? Are getting used to you, guys. You
know what, We're getting kind of used to you too.
(22:42):
It's surprising, given our love of a good orphan story,
that the Orphan Train has been so overlooked. By the
time the Civil War ended in eighteen sixty five, the
Children's Aid Society had placed twelve hundred children with families
in America's heartland, but Charles Loring Brace's organization placed children
(23:03):
primarily in Protestant homes, regardless of the fact that many
of those babies were born to Catholic immigrant mothers. Enter
the New York Foundling Hospital once again Shaley George from
the National Orphan Train Complex. The New York Foundling Hospital
starts in eighteen sixty nine with two sisters, Sister Theresa
(23:23):
and Sister Anne, and then their head of their found
sister Mary Irene Fitzgibbons. And so they start the New
York Founling hospitalist tiny little Brownstone, and within the night
a baby's left on their doorstep. The demand for their
services caught them totally off guard, and by the end
of the month they have forty five infants. By the
(23:44):
end of the year, they have over a hundred, and
so their mission turned to placing Catholic babies in Catholic homes.
Not all of those babies were Catholic when they were
left at the door the Foundling Hospital, but as one
orphan train rider set about the Foundling, you might go
in one way, but you'll leave a Catholic Following in
the tracks of the Children's Aid Society, the Foundlings started
(24:07):
placing children on trains headed west, but these children were
much younger, mostly infants, and specifically chosen to resemble the
families they were joining. They believe that placing out younger
children who matched the family by eye color, hair color, age,
and gender would cut back on the stigma from the
surrounding community because they looked like the family that they
(24:29):
were placed in. So it's sort of the reverse of
Children's Aid Society, where the Children's Aid Society sends kids
out and then prospective parents choose the kids. Then here
it's more of a mail order system, right. Basically, that's
what happened to Anne Harrison, who was featured on CBS
Sunday Morning back in two thousand and two when she
(24:52):
was a spry ninety three. They had asked for a
two and a half year old girl with brown and
brown eyes. Well, they got a two and a half
year old girl that had auburn hair and hazel eyes.
But that was close enough. Because she was so young
(25:13):
when she arrived. Anne grew up not even knowing she
was adopted. Her father made sure of that. Her father
basically threatened the entire town to not tell her she
was adopted. Her father never wanted her to feel less
than to be thought of that she was not truly
his daughter. But despite her father's best efforts, the other
(25:36):
kids and her own teachers never quite accepted her. I
was never popular in school, and that bothered me, and
I seemed to always be the odd ball. Orphans or
adopted children were not really as good class as the
other people. I think that was just a general thought
(25:58):
that you were bad see if you came from people
that they didn't know. So a lot of the orphan
train writers had to contend with people who were not
pleased with them being in town. The idea is that
you're going to inherit traits of poverty, of vice from
(26:19):
parents that some never knew. Almost like the orphan train
writers are tainted. Yeah, the negativity of immigration is there
from the get go, the negativity of your parents didn't
want you, your parents lost you because they were a
drunk or abusive or in prison. Anne would grow up,
moved to Chicago and become a professional nightclub singer. She
(26:42):
wouldn't find out she was adopted until she was twenty
seven years old. And that wasn't the only surprise waiting
for the woman who'd been baptized to Catholic In nineteen
eighty nine, I get this letter from the New York
Health Department. Open it up, and there's my rich birth certificate,
(27:03):
Mabel Ruben. My mother's name was of Jenny Rubin. My
father's name was Mokne. Well. I looked at that and
I just split into laughter. She just thought, well, I'll
just go on and add a Star of David to
my crucifix necklace and just keep going, because what can
(27:26):
I do? Well? My Jewish friends said, we know it
all the time. The Foundling and Children's Aid Society together
set the lion's share of those two hundred and fifty
thousand children west until the last orphan train left for
Sulfur Springs, Texas, on May thirty first, nineteen twenty nine.
(27:50):
The world had simply outgrown the orphan train. Communities in
the Midwest now had their own abandoned children to help.
But the story doesn't end there. We know how a
quarter million children found their way west, but what happened
after they grew up? Do you know the name that
(28:11):
was given to you at bern Sophia? Who names your Sophia?
Or my mother or my dad? That's Renee Wending her
interviewing her mother, Sophia Hillesheim Kaminski. Sophia had been an
orphan train writer, taken in by Anna Grime, a single
(28:34):
woman in Springfield, Minnesota, who spoke only German. She really
didn't know how to reraise children. She could not be English,
so I had to learn German. Then when I went
back to school, then I had to relearn that the
English because I could only talked German all the time.
So what did you do for entertainment? I didn't have
(28:58):
any entertainment. I had to work all the But that
wasn't the worst of it was Anna physically abusive, Yeah,
she was. She had a little whip that she kept
in the corner. It was a snake handled whip, and
by that I mean it was sort of a leather
handled whip, and that's the way she would flog her
and she'd say, now you remember this, and remember not
(29:21):
to do that again. Sophia's orphan train story is a
sad one, but it doesn't end at her childhood. She
would grow up to become someone vastly different from Anna Grime.
Here's how Renee describes her mother. She just had such
a warm, open heart. There is no one that ever
(29:43):
knew her would say anything bad about her because she
was just a warm, loving person. You know, it's funny
that your mother's story and so many of these other
orphan train writers stories, it sort of underlines how vulnerable
children are, but also how resilient they were the type
(30:03):
of people that would just sort of kind of pull
the bootstraps up and they would carry on. But my
mother would always say, I was just so thankful to
have a roof over my head. Your mother had a
lot to be angry about, she really did, but she
did not have that in her heart. And you know,
I don't know if that's something that we inherit Is
(30:25):
it biological? Do we have the influences around us? Is
it our geography? I have no idea. But her arms
were always outreached to people. But Renee's mother didn't find
peace until near the end of her own life. Did
your mother ever forgive Anna? She did not forgive her
(30:47):
until she was about I think she was like ninety
six years old, and she asked me one day if
I would take her to the cemetery. She said, it's time.
I need to go to the cemetery and I need
to forgive her. So you took your ninety six year
old mother to the cemetery. And what did she say
(31:10):
when she was at the tombstone of Havannah? I have
no idea what she spoke inside her heart and we
walked away and she said, it's done. I needed to
do that. She said, I should have done that a
long time ago. Now, all the Orphan train riders you've
(31:38):
been hearing from in this episode, Renee's mother, Sophia, Anna,
and Margaret Fuchs, Anne Harrison, they're all voices from the past.
They're all gone. But I wanted to talk to a
rider myself, and so I went down to Texas to
meet the last known surviving orphan train ride her okay,
(32:03):
testing testing regular. I'm in a conference room at an
assisted living facility in East Bernard, Texas, an hour outside
of Houston, sitting with me a host of eager relatives
surrounding ninety seven year old Beatrice Voytech, an actual orphan
train rider. The only thing is we don't ninety seven.
(32:26):
She's doing great. That's her son, George. You're a terrific
looking ninety seven and appreciating you may be the last
surviving orphan train rider. How does that feel what I'm
kind of make believe that because I was the smallest
on that train, she's a national treasure. Did you hear
(32:47):
that you're a national treasure? You are because you are you?
Absolutely I appreciate it, But I'm thinking nothing extra from
from any other orphan. Beatrice, the daughter of an Irish immigrant,
was only fourteen months old when she made the trip
from New York City, landing with a Czech family in Texas.
(33:11):
She's got a fascinating story, but in the end, the
person that seems least interested in it is Beatrice. I
asked her about discovering she was an orphan, train writer.
You didn't know that you'd been adopted. I didn't know
I was an orphan. I didn't know anything. I've just
read it a lot of time. You mama, and you mama,
you my mind, you mama, and I didn't pay attention
(33:34):
to it. I asked her about her birth mother, who
was twenty nine when she had her. If she used
she stood that chance of getting pregnant, then she should
have known that she fit to provide for that baby.
Do you wonder what the rest of her life was like?
You mean my real mother? No, I asked Beatrice if
(33:55):
she ever wondered what she might have missed out on
having been scooped up and moved so far away so young. Well, yeah,
I mean I was adopted into a into a family,
and and that was my family. That was that, you know,
that was my life. You've never imagined, even for a moment,
what your life would have been like if you stayed
(34:17):
in New York. Oh yeah, oh yeah, I thought about?
And what did you think? What were you? Thank God,
I'm I'm here in Texas. I'm satisfied with my life
the way it is, and and I'm so blessed with
you know, the people that adopted me and and and
(34:39):
wrote me up and raised me right and probably much
better than my real parents with And if you ever
do want to come to New York, I've got a
gast room. We'll go see a Broadway show. You ever
see Phantom of the Opera? No, it's terrific. Yeah. There
(35:03):
was no dramatic revelation from Beatrice, no rosebud moment. She
didn't render a sweeping verdict on whether the Orphan Train
was good or bad as she saw it. She rode
the train, she grew up, she moved on. It was
what it was. But when Beatrice herself passes on, that
(35:24):
won't be the end of the Orphan Train story. Descendants,
historians and budding historians like Clara Isaacson are still telling
it today. Does this give you kind of a new
appreciation of the importance of preserving history. I believe it does. Yeah,
and especially this movement, because it's not well known at all.
(35:47):
And I've joined the little community of the Orphan Train
rider people trying to keep the story alive, and the
main way of preserving it is through Orphan Train reunions.
When they first started in the nineteen sixties. They were
places for the writers themselves together. What these writers would
do with stand up and tell their stories, and I
(36:09):
found them so intriguing and so interesting. These riders when
they got together, they celebrated for three straight days. Unstruck
by how you used the word celebrate, What do you
mean celebrate? They celebrated their togetherness as orphan trained brothers
(36:29):
and sisters. But as the number of riders has dwindled,
they've become a chance for descendants to share memories and
stories of their loved ones who have passed on. It's
quite amazing. In fact, we feel very much a kinship
with each other. We all know what our parent felt
or our grandparents felt, and soon, hopefully a grandchildren of
(36:52):
these writers will take over the legacy of the Orphan
Train movement isn't easy to quantify. While all the ers
were impacted by their new communities and families, many grew
up to make their own impact on the world. The
kids went on to serve in the Civil War, World
War One, World War two, Korea. We have some that
(37:13):
served in Vietnam. Just thinking politically, you know, speaking the
people who served in our state governments in our Congress.
Just some of the Orphan Train riders who went on
to lead lives of distinction. Andrew Burke became the second
governor of the state of North Dakota. His friend John
(37:33):
Greene Brady, who wrote the same Orphan Train, would become
governor of the Territory of Alaska. Henry L. Jost became
mayor of Kansas City, Missouri, his nickname the Orphan Boy
Mayor before joining the United States Congress. Joe Aya would
become head football coach at Louisiana Tech University and inducted
(37:53):
into the College Football Hall of Fame. And while we
can't confirm it, there's a longstanding rumor in the orphan
train community that a former United States Supreme Court justice
was a writer, but kept its secret because of the stigma.
If you think you know who it was, let us know.
The writers certainly made their mark. The Children's Aid Society
(38:15):
estimates that there are over two million Orphan Train descendants
alive today. Yeah, they helped shape America, But on a
personal level, the trains meant something different to each child
who wrote them. For Anna Fuchs, it was the best
possible solution to a terrible situation. It took a lot
(38:36):
of kids off of the streets of New York who
might have become prostitutes and beggars and thieves, and gave
them another chance of life. For her sister Margaret, though
its benefits couldn't justify the pain it caused for that time.
I guess it was as good as anything. It was
all it was, but I certainly can't go along with it.
(38:58):
I feel that the idea of taking children and having
them lose all contact with any any of the relatives,
I think is wrong. And Harrison never let the inauspicious
start to her life slow her down. I've had a
good life, you think so. Yes, I just took opportunities
(39:18):
when they came, and when I couldn't find the opportunities,
I lived with what was there. But it's Renee Wendinger's
perspective that will stick with me the longest. I am
a grandmother, and every time my grandchildren have turned the
age of two, I look at them and I think, oh,
(39:41):
my gosh, this is what my mother would have looked
like when she boarded that train at Grand Central Terminal.
And I really cannot imagine that little child getting on
a train to somewhere to nowhere. I have no idea
what my life is going to be like. Wow, and
(40:05):
two year olds is so vulnerable, absolutely so vulnerable. It
hits your heart. You know, I don't know anyone that
does not have a heart for any child. Next time
(40:28):
on Mobituaries, Fred Ormiston joins me for a salute to
the ultimate square and Badass bandleader and TV host Lawrence Welk.
Could it be seen as something a little bit like
and I'm not trying to be like make a shocking comparison,
but like it's a little bit of like what the
Grateful Dead did in that like just keep going, just
(40:52):
keep going. This is definitely the first Lawrence Well Grateful
Dead comparison ever. But I totally hear what you're saying.
I certainly hope you enjoyed this mobituary. May I ask
you to please rate and review our podcast. You can
also follow Mobituaries on Facebook and Instagram, and you can
follow me Morocca on Twitter at Morocca. For more great
(41:13):
content about the Orphan Trains, please visit mobituaries dot com.
You can subscribe to Mobituaries wherever you get your podcasts.
This episode of Mobituaries was produced by Harry Wood and
Gideon Evans. Our team of producers also includes Megan Marcus
and me Morocca. It was edited by Harry Wood and
engineered by Dan de Zula. Indispensable support from Genius Daneski,
(41:38):
Kate mccauliffe, Sam Egan, Renee Wendinger, Shalley, George Jason Saca,
Alberto Rovina, Richard Roher, and everyone at CBS News Radio.
Thank you to the New York Daily News for letting
me join you for your one hundredth anniversary celebration, and
to the New York Foundling for welcoming us to your
one hundred and fiftieth anniversary that it's a competition. Thanks
(42:01):
also to CBS News correspondent Bob McNamara for his two
thousand and two interview of Anne Harrison. We'd like to
thank Greg Markway, the families of Anna and Margaret Fuchs
and Anne Harrison, Beatrice Foytek and her family, and Linda Fomer,
the orphan trained descendant and researcher who connected us to
Beatrice special Thanks to our bold, budding young historians from
(42:26):
National History Day, Addie Skilling, Tucker Ulshevie, Jacob Reid, Evelyn Carpenter,
Katie Marakovitz, Jack Anderson, Jader Briggs, Megan Swancutt, Datona Foley,
Logan Smith, and of course Claire Isaacson and her mom Joy.
Our theme music is written by Daniel Hart and as always,
undying thanks to Rand Morrison and John carp without whom
(42:50):
Mobituaries couldn't live. Hi, It's Moe. If you're enjoying Mobituaries
the podcast, may I invite you to check out Mobituaries
the book. It's chock full of stories not in the podcast.
(43:10):
Celebrities who put their butts on the line, sports teams
that threw in the towel for good, forgotten fashions, defunct diagnoses,
presidential candidacies that cratered whole countries that went caput. And dragons, Yes, dragons,
you see. People used to believe the dragons will reel
until just get the book. You can order Mobituaries the
(43:31):
Book from any online bookseller, or stop by your local
bookstore and look for me when I come to your city.
Tour information and lots more at mobituaries dot com
Hi, my name is Addie Skillman, and this is Loving
versus Virginia, the stepping stone for equality in America. Every year,
at the National History Day Contest, middle and high school
kids from across the country gathered to compete, presenting on
a range of historical topics, turning the Times, reward of
(00:22):
victory rise, the appeal, taking a stand against prohibition, Root
sixty six, Road of Possibilities, what costs a Louis Chaplin,
Missouri alcoholicy? It's as pretty to get your kids at
sixty six. But the topic that grabbed my attention was
one presented by a fifteen year old from Minnesota, Claire Isaacson.
(00:46):
Orphan Train to compromise the children on the right trucks.
I'd never heard of the Orphan Train, but from her
first line, Claire had me hooked. Your parents are not
your parents, Your past is not your past. Your life
begins when you are chosen. Your life begins when you
(01:12):
were chosen, an apt way to describe the Orphan Train,
mostly forgotten nineteenth century movement that rescued abandoned children from
the crowded streets of East Coast cities and delivered them
by train to new families. Across the country. In her presentation,
Claire channeled real life orphan train rider Victoria Moe, a
(01:34):
child of Irish immigrants, as she made the trip west.
We cross our fingers and pray that we get a
loving home. Many older children were scared and tried to run.
Our pasts were left behind on that train station. We
were going to have a totally different life in our
new homes. I spoke to Claire after her performance, and
(02:01):
I'm a little embarrassed that I'd never even heard of
this before. Yeah, I know, it's crazy, and that's why
I'm thankful that I did the topics, so I can
hopefully make more people know about it, because it's really
a secret and kind of hidden. How big was this movement? Well,
(02:21):
a quarter million children. We're moved west from eighteen fifty
four to nineteen twenty nine. A quarter million people. That's
like the population of Cleveland. That's a lot of people.
As I dug into our archives at CBS News, more
voices began to surface, voices of orphan train riders from
years past, all of them children who had been lifted
(02:45):
from dire situations and scattered across the country for hope
of a better life. They sent me out west to
Colorado Springs. I went to Wayne County. I had never
heard of anything ar Kansas. In this episode, we'll tell
you the story of the largest mass migration of children
(03:08):
in American history. And I'll travel to Texas to talk
to the last known surviving orphan train rider. They took
you when you were such a little baby, the smallest,
smallest train from CBS Sunday Morning and Simon and Schuster.
I'm Morocca and this is mobituaries. This mobit the Orphan Train.
(03:37):
May thirty first, nineteen twenty nine, death of an American experiment.
Extra Extra read all about it. The Boston molasses disaster
of nineteen nineteen. It's a slow reader. If you happen
(03:57):
to be outside Penn Station in New York City last tune,
you might have seen a familiar face. What else extract
Star read all about it. Warren Harding dead. It was
the one hundredth anniversary of the New York Daily News,
and I had joined their street team for the day
to pass out papers. Look, I love any opportunity to
(04:17):
need to shout random historical facts at strangers. Extractor read
all about it. The Sultan, the swat traded to the
Yankees called the Babe Newsy Walt. I love the Baboruth thing,
but I also wanted to get a feel for what
it was like to be a Newsy on the streets
of New York. You know, newsies, they're the plucky, dancing
(04:38):
paperboys from that Disney musically loved, But it turns out
it wasn't all song and dance. Newsies worked long hours
on poor wages. Most of them were abandoned children, and
in the mid eighteen hundreds, New York City had a
(05:00):
crisis of abandoned children. Enter Charles Loring Brace. Charles Loring Brace,
from a young age to his dying day, really tried
to be the best he could be for others. Sherley
George is the head curator of the National Orphan Train
Complex in Concordia, Kansas. And to tell the story of
(05:21):
the Orphan Train, you have to tell the story of
Charles Loring Brace, who was born in eighteen twenty six
into a well to do family in Lichfields, Connecticut. What
was he raised to do? Yeah? Well, his father, who
was a teacher, thought that Charles would follow in his footsteps,
and he thought, okay, Charles is going to be a teacher,
and then Charles decides to be a pastor. But then
(05:43):
he realizes that you don't have to be a pastor
that stands behind a pulpit. The patrician Charles was going
to become a missionary, an idea that greatly concerned his father,
because being a pastor, you know, it's kind of nice,
you get invited over to dinner, You've got a nice
place where you live. But I mean, when you're missionary,
you're kind of rolling up your sleeves and getting out there.
He truly jumped into the depths that were being ignored.
(06:08):
In the eighteen fifties, mass immigration from Europe, mostly Irish
and German Catholics, overwhelmed New York City. Poor sanitation and
wild pigs roaming the streets spread diseases like cholera and tuberculosis.
Non Existent labor laws meant unsustainable wages and unsafe working conditions,
(06:29):
And while the wretched state of affairs touched people of
all ages, children felt the effects hardest. There was infanticide
happening in New York where these kids were actually literally
dying in the streets in the gutters. These babies were
tossed out of homes. Renee Wendinger has written several books
(06:50):
about the orphan train movement. She has a personal connection
to the subject. Her mother, Sophia, was a rider. Have
you ever wondered what would have happened here mother had
she stayed in New York. I don't think in that
time frame she would have survived. Charles Loring Brace was
determined to help. Remember the newsies. He created lodging houses
(07:13):
for them, but there were far more children in need
than there were jobs for newsboys. Give me a sense
of the scale of the problem. At one point they
say ten thousand kids are on the street. At another turn,
it's thirty thousand, thirty thousand homeless children at a time
when New York had fewer than six hundred thousand people total.
(07:35):
Charles Loring Brace saw all this firsthand. It's eighteen fifty
three in the February of that year. He starts going
out into the streets and quickly realizes that we're spending
more money imprisoning children because you could be arrested for
being a vagrant child, and he wants to help. Now.
Orphanages existed back then, but they were overcrowded and so
(07:59):
called poor houses put children and adults together, a dangerous
situation for kids, So maybe it was best to get
them out of New York altogether. He really believed in
the idea of getting kids out of the city and
out of vice. Vice. It seems like the perfect word
what he sees going on in the cities of these kids.
(08:20):
He just sees it as kind of a cauldron of sinfulness, basically.
But he really doesn't see a way for children to
grow up and not be touched by it, not be
drawn into it, to live in an orphanage and then
be let out at eighteen, and not fall into a prison.
So Brace comes up with a plan to move children
(08:43):
on mass to a place where they'll stand a better chance.
Put simply, Charles Laying Brace says, We're going to put
some kids on a train. Yeah. In eighteen fifty three,
Brace founds the Children's Aid Society to help carry out
his grand plan. First, he needs to find people willing
to take in abandoned children. He basically selects a community
(09:06):
where he knows someone. They're going to go through that
church and require that people who apply for them bring
two references from their pastor and from their courthouse, and
they're going to place them out under the guardianship of
the Children's Aid Society. Why is he confident that they're
even going to be placed I think he truly believed
(09:26):
that people weren't going to come to New York and
take kids out of orphanages. But if he brought them
to them, put them in their face, there was no
way they could say no, And so he took a chance.
Brace makes a deal with a pastor he knows in
the small town of Dowagiac, Michigan, and the Children's Aid
(09:47):
Society begins to gather the forty five children who will
be the passengers on the first orphan train. The majority
come from the New York Juvenile Asylum, and technically that
first train we now know by historical records, is paid
for in half by children they had studiy near juvel
Asylum or any of the kids coerced, pressured or is
(10:11):
this something that they all wanted. It's seemingly like they
wanted it, But of course what's the alternative now? Orphan
train is a slight misnomer. It takes multiple trains and
boats to get from New York City to Michigan. For
many of these children, it's their first time ever leaving
New York City. How scary that must have been on
(10:33):
the choppy water and the cliffs and how many trees
there are. Yeah, for these kids, it must have been
like going to another planet. Oh. Absolutely. A memory of
this kind of crossing even made it into Claire's Orphan
Train performance, I've been crossing the Hudson River. I wonder
that filled our eyes. Oh we had to receive sorrowing pain.
(10:57):
What a new world this was for us. The children
arrive and to watch yak in late September eighteen fifty four,
and no one, not the children, not their caretaker, not
the townspeople, really knows what to expect. So they get
off the train and to watch yac and then what happens.
The kids are so excited. They're finally in Michigan, their
(11:17):
final destination, and they take off. That's right, they run
in all directions. Look, they're kids, they've been cooped up
on a train for days. Their caretaker can't keep up.
He just goes to wait for them at the hotel.
Finally the kids start rolling in and they have stolen
everything green apples and pumpkins and acorns, and have shoved
(11:40):
grass and leaves up their shirts, up their shirt sleeves,
in their hats, down their pants, in their pockets because
they're so excited. They've never seen everything where it grows.
And I'm curious, do they know that you're not supposed
to steal? Possibly not, And I'm trying to imagine what
the people in the town are thinking. I bet they're alarmed.
(12:05):
They probably are alarmed. The people of Dowagiac, after all,
are scheduled to meet the Orphan train riders that day
at church. You can imagine that already they're regretting welcoming
the orphans to town. But when they get to church,
they're greeted with a surprise. The first thing that they
(12:26):
really hear from the kids are our Sunday hymns, and
they are singing Kumye Center's poor and needy. The kids
went over the town. They're placed within a week, all
of them, So this first ride had to be considered
(12:47):
a success. Absolutely. Two months later, a second train leaves
New York and the Orphan Train movement begins in earnest
and now a pop quiz because I love pop quizzes.
It's easy to overlook, but so much of America's history innovation, arts,
(13:09):
and entertainment politics has been driven by individuals who grew
up adopted or in foster families. I'm going to give
you some clues, and you have to guess which famous
orphan I'm describing. If you get two out of three,
you win. There are no prizes. Our first clue before this,
former president, Stanford graduate and self made millionaire was roasted
(13:33):
in the Broadway musical Annie for his role presiding over
the Great Depression. He was raised by distant relatives in
Oregon after losing both of his parents to pneumonia. It's
Herbert Hoover fun Backed. One of his nicknames was the Hermit,
(13:56):
author of Palo Alto. Next. This fast food mogul, whose
grandma's advice not to cut corners inspired his decision to
make his iconic burghers square instead of round. Was adopted
as a baby and used his wealth and influence to
help others with childhoods like his, creating a foundation that
(14:17):
still supports foster children around the country. I'm Dave Thomas.
I started Wendy's were One restaurant. It's Dave Thomas fon fact.
Before he created Wendy's, he was the mastermind behind the
fried Chicken bucket that put KFC on the map. Finally,
this adopted child would become famous at the ripe old
(14:40):
age of ten, playing the lead role in a series
about a family living on the prairie in Minnesota in
the eighteen seventies. I decided something, what's that happening? Home
is the nicest word there is. It's Melissa Gilbert. Her show,
Little House on the Prairie would have stori lines were
(15:00):
evolving around orphans throughout its run, including one played by
friend of the podcast, Chase and Bateman. Well, we hope
you meant what you said about how you want us
to stay, because that's what we want to Speaking of
little houses and prairies, let's get back on that orphan train.
(15:22):
As the Children's Aid Society grew, it sent hundreds, then
thousands of children all across the country. Now almost none
of the riders are alive today. But back in nineteen
seventy nine, my CBS Sunday Morning colleague, the great Martha Tischner,
interviewed sisters Anna and Margaret Fuchs. They and their third sister, Helen,
(15:42):
rode the orphan train when they were just ten nine
and seven years old, they were orphaned after losing both
their parents to tuberculosis. Margaret remembered seeing their mother's burial.
The thing that really got to me was seeing that
coffin being lord, and I can remember trying to jump
into that grave because that was my mother down there.
(16:05):
When the children were put on a train in nineteen
twenty four, they didn't even know where they were headed.
As Anna remembered, had very strong ideas that I was
going to California. I didn't know there was any other
stake besides New York and California, as far as I
was concerned. Margaret described their arrival in the tiny town
(16:27):
of McPherson, Kansas. First thing I did was to look around.
How come they letting us out in the middle of nowhere.
I couldn't see any buildings. I was looking for skyscrapers.
Whenever orphans sent by the Society arrived at their destination,
they were lined up on a train platform or on
the stage of a theater so that families could walk
down the line and pick out their preferred kid. As
(16:50):
author Renee Wendinger explains, this process actually gave rise to
a familiar turn of phrase. Some of the children would
have stood on a little box called the soapbox, and
that's how the term put up for adoption became known
as we know it today. If it sounds impersonal, well
that's an understatement. Here's how fifteen year old Claire Isaacson
(17:12):
described it in her National History Day performance. These were
usually chised first, then a tougher, stronger looking voice. Us
girls were usually chosen last. We watched people come and
go and inspect of the children. We saw them looking
at their teeth and even having some boys to push us.
(17:33):
Martha Teichner asked Anna Fuchs about her experience. Did you
ever feel any outrage or any anger at the fact
that you were being kind of lined up there and say, okay,
I got a kid. No, I don't think so. I
think it's a matter of you sort of blame yourself
for having lost your folks. The sisters were all selected,
(17:55):
but by different families. How big a thought was that
when you were standing there the day that you were
both selected by families, seeing each other and seeing goodbyes
and wondering what's going to happen. I think it was
sort of the case that there was so much confusion
and all that We didn't really have that much chance
(18:16):
to think about it, did we. I don't think the
thought entered my mind at all until I got third
and sat on that step ladder in the kitchen, and
then it finally hit me. You are alone. That was
when you started, and that's when I start in Sibling
(18:37):
separation was an added trauma thousands of orphan writers suffered
over the years. Were you scared? Yes, I think we
just wanted to be sure that we were going to
be close enough together so that we get to wouldn't
lose each other. Why was that so important? What was it?
(18:57):
We were a family, and that was all the family
there were. Even though Anna and Margaret were both taken
in by families in the same town, their lives took
very different turns. Anna became extremely close to her new mother,
Jenny Bankston. She was a person I could trust when
I first came here. When I came out here, that
(19:19):
was one thing I did not trust anyone. I had
lost faith in people. I really feel like I've had
two mothers. Margaret, meanwhile, was taken in by the Runnyan
family who ran a local boarding house. They enlisted Margaret
to help with cleaning and cooking for guests. It was
a pretty cold, business like relationship. I always had the
(19:42):
feeling that I was there in place of a maid.
Now these weren't formal adoptions, at least not at first,
but the families writers ended up with were bound by contract.
Parents had to make sure the children went to school
and church. There were expectations for the kids as well. Yes,
the child had to be a child and listen to
(20:03):
those parents and help bat around the house, and a
household at that moment operated like a little business, whether
you were the birth child, or the adopted child, or
the foster child. Basically, what you're saying is being a
kid in the nineteenth century wasn't very fun. No, no,
absolutely not. But that didn't make it any easier for
orphaned children hoping to find a family. Arriving to one
(20:25):
like Margaret's was hard. I honestly don't remember what I
called him mom and dad, or what I call him mister,
miss Brennan. What does I tell you about your experience? Well,
it just that there wasn't that kind of love there,
or affection of any kind. Does it hurt you that
you never had that? Does it? Oh? Yes, yes, particularly
(20:49):
when I knew the kind of a home that Anna
was him where she was getting that kind of affection
at all. Margaret's situation wasn't rare, but spurred by the
Children's Aid Society's success, other organizations began to follow suit,
and in eighteen sixty nine, the second largest orphan train
(21:10):
institution began. Earlier, I quizzed you on some of America's
most prominent real life orphans, but they're not nearly as
famous as some fictional orphans. Remember that Herbert Hoover song
from about ten minutes ago, Well, it's from a musical
centered around an orphan. Why any kid would want to
(21:32):
be an orphan is beyond me. Little Orphan Annie was
a star, first of comic strips, then of the Broadway stage.
In my opinion, the nineteen eighty two movie is only
worth mentioning for Carol Burnett's Miss Hannigan. And if this
(21:52):
floor don't shine, I could talk with the Presner building
or backside? Will you stand yes? Miss Hagen? On television,
the nineteen eighties, As It Happens, were a boom time
for orphan centered sitcoms, starting with Arnold and Willis on
Different Strokes, Don't Get too used at his place, and
(22:17):
there was Punky Brewster. What does Manu and Womy? It's
flow with me. Nothing's wrong with you. You don't want me,
neither my mom that's why she did me and who
could forget Webster? Are getting used to you, guys. You
know what, We're getting kind of used to you too.
(22:42):
It's surprising, given our love of a good orphan story,
that the Orphan Train has been so overlooked. By the
time the Civil War ended in eighteen sixty five, the
Children's Aid Society had placed twelve hundred children with families
in America's heartland, but Charles Loring Brace's organization placed children
(23:03):
primarily in Protestant homes, regardless of the fact that many
of those babies were born to Catholic immigrant mothers. Enter
the New York Foundling Hospital once again Shaley George from
the National Orphan Train Complex. The New York Foundling Hospital
starts in eighteen sixty nine with two sisters, Sister Theresa
(23:23):
and Sister Anne, and then their head of their found
sister Mary Irene Fitzgibbons. And so they start the New
York Founling hospitalist tiny little Brownstone, and within the night
a baby's left on their doorstep. The demand for their
services caught them totally off guard, and by the end
of the month they have forty five infants. By the
(23:44):
end of the year, they have over a hundred, and
so their mission turned to placing Catholic babies in Catholic homes.
Not all of those babies were Catholic when they were
left at the door the Foundling Hospital, but as one
orphan train rider set about the Foundling, you might go
in one way, but you'll leave a Catholic Following in
the tracks of the Children's Aid Society, the Foundlings started
(24:07):
placing children on trains headed west, but these children were
much younger, mostly infants, and specifically chosen to resemble the
families they were joining. They believe that placing out younger
children who matched the family by eye color, hair color, age,
and gender would cut back on the stigma from the
surrounding community because they looked like the family that they
(24:29):
were placed in. So it's sort of the reverse of
Children's Aid Society, where the Children's Aid Society sends kids
out and then prospective parents choose the kids. Then here
it's more of a mail order system, right. Basically, that's
what happened to Anne Harrison, who was featured on CBS
Sunday Morning back in two thousand and two when she
(24:52):
was a spry ninety three. They had asked for a
two and a half year old girl with brown and
brown eyes. Well, they got a two and a half
year old girl that had auburn hair and hazel eyes.
But that was close enough. Because she was so young
(25:13):
when she arrived. Anne grew up not even knowing she
was adopted. Her father made sure of that. Her father
basically threatened the entire town to not tell her she
was adopted. Her father never wanted her to feel less
than to be thought of that she was not truly
his daughter. But despite her father's best efforts, the other
(25:36):
kids and her own teachers never quite accepted her. I
was never popular in school, and that bothered me, and
I seemed to always be the odd ball. Orphans or
adopted children were not really as good class as the
other people. I think that was just a general thought
(25:58):
that you were bad see if you came from people
that they didn't know. So a lot of the orphan
train writers had to contend with people who were not
pleased with them being in town. The idea is that
you're going to inherit traits of poverty, of vice from
(26:19):
parents that some never knew. Almost like the orphan train
writers are tainted. Yeah, the negativity of immigration is there
from the get go, the negativity of your parents didn't
want you, your parents lost you because they were a
drunk or abusive or in prison. Anne would grow up,
moved to Chicago and become a professional nightclub singer. She
(26:42):
wouldn't find out she was adopted until she was twenty
seven years old. And that wasn't the only surprise waiting
for the woman who'd been baptized to Catholic In nineteen
eighty nine, I get this letter from the New York
Health Department. Open it up, and there's my rich birth certificate,
(27:03):
Mabel Ruben. My mother's name was of Jenny Rubin. My
father's name was Mokne. Well. I looked at that and
I just split into laughter. She just thought, well, I'll
just go on and add a Star of David to
my crucifix necklace and just keep going, because what can
(27:26):
I do? Well? My Jewish friends said, we know it
all the time. The Foundling and Children's Aid Society together
set the lion's share of those two hundred and fifty
thousand children west until the last orphan train left for
Sulfur Springs, Texas, on May thirty first, nineteen twenty nine.
(27:50):
The world had simply outgrown the orphan train. Communities in
the Midwest now had their own abandoned children to help.
But the story doesn't end there. We know how a
quarter million children found their way west, but what happened
after they grew up? Do you know the name that
(28:11):
was given to you at bern Sophia? Who names your Sophia?
Or my mother or my dad? That's Renee Wending her
interviewing her mother, Sophia Hillesheim Kaminski. Sophia had been an
orphan train writer, taken in by Anna Grime, a single
(28:34):
woman in Springfield, Minnesota, who spoke only German. She really
didn't know how to reraise children. She could not be English,
so I had to learn German. Then when I went
back to school, then I had to relearn that the
English because I could only talked German all the time.
So what did you do for entertainment? I didn't have
(28:58):
any entertainment. I had to work all the But that
wasn't the worst of it was Anna physically abusive, Yeah,
she was. She had a little whip that she kept
in the corner. It was a snake handled whip, and
by that I mean it was sort of a leather
handled whip, and that's the way she would flog her
and she'd say, now you remember this, and remember not
(29:21):
to do that again. Sophia's orphan train story is a
sad one, but it doesn't end at her childhood. She
would grow up to become someone vastly different from Anna Grime.
Here's how Renee describes her mother. She just had such
a warm, open heart. There is no one that ever
(29:43):
knew her would say anything bad about her because she
was just a warm, loving person. You know, it's funny
that your mother's story and so many of these other
orphan train writers stories, it sort of underlines how vulnerable
children are, but also how resilient they were the type
(30:03):
of people that would just sort of kind of pull
the bootstraps up and they would carry on. But my
mother would always say, I was just so thankful to
have a roof over my head. Your mother had a
lot to be angry about, she really did, but she
did not have that in her heart. And you know,
I don't know if that's something that we inherit Is
(30:25):
it biological? Do we have the influences around us? Is
it our geography? I have no idea. But her arms
were always outreached to people. But Renee's mother didn't find
peace until near the end of her own life. Did
your mother ever forgive Anna? She did not forgive her
(30:47):
until she was about I think she was like ninety
six years old, and she asked me one day if
I would take her to the cemetery. She said, it's time.
I need to go to the cemetery and I need
to forgive her. So you took your ninety six year
old mother to the cemetery. And what did she say
(31:10):
when she was at the tombstone of Havannah? I have
no idea what she spoke inside her heart and we
walked away and she said, it's done. I needed to
do that. She said, I should have done that a
long time ago. Now, all the Orphan train riders you've
(31:38):
been hearing from in this episode, Renee's mother, Sophia, Anna,
and Margaret Fuchs, Anne Harrison, they're all voices from the past.
They're all gone. But I wanted to talk to a
rider myself, and so I went down to Texas to
meet the last known surviving orphan train ride her okay,
(32:03):
testing testing regular. I'm in a conference room at an
assisted living facility in East Bernard, Texas, an hour outside
of Houston, sitting with me a host of eager relatives
surrounding ninety seven year old Beatrice Voytech, an actual orphan
train rider. The only thing is we don't ninety seven.
(32:26):
She's doing great. That's her son, George. You're a terrific
looking ninety seven and appreciating you may be the last
surviving orphan train rider. How does that feel what I'm
kind of make believe that because I was the smallest
on that train, she's a national treasure. Did you hear
(32:47):
that you're a national treasure? You are because you are you?
Absolutely I appreciate it, But I'm thinking nothing extra from
from any other orphan. Beatrice, the daughter of an Irish immigrant,
was only fourteen months old when she made the trip
from New York City, landing with a Czech family in Texas.
(33:11):
She's got a fascinating story, but in the end, the
person that seems least interested in it is Beatrice. I
asked her about discovering she was an orphan, train writer.
You didn't know that you'd been adopted. I didn't know
I was an orphan. I didn't know anything. I've just
read it a lot of time. You mama, and you mama,
you my mind, you mama, and I didn't pay attention
(33:34):
to it. I asked her about her birth mother, who
was twenty nine when she had her. If she used
she stood that chance of getting pregnant, then she should
have known that she fit to provide for that baby.
Do you wonder what the rest of her life was like?
You mean my real mother? No, I asked Beatrice if
(33:55):
she ever wondered what she might have missed out on
having been scooped up and moved so far away so young. Well, yeah,
I mean I was adopted into a into a family,
and and that was my family. That was that, you know,
that was my life. You've never imagined, even for a moment,
what your life would have been like if you stayed
(34:17):
in New York. Oh yeah, oh yeah, I thought about?
And what did you think? What were you? Thank God,
I'm I'm here in Texas. I'm satisfied with my life
the way it is, and and I'm so blessed with
you know, the people that adopted me and and and
(34:39):
wrote me up and raised me right and probably much
better than my real parents with And if you ever
do want to come to New York, I've got a
gast room. We'll go see a Broadway show. You ever
see Phantom of the Opera? No, it's terrific. Yeah. There
(35:03):
was no dramatic revelation from Beatrice, no rosebud moment. She
didn't render a sweeping verdict on whether the Orphan Train
was good or bad as she saw it. She rode
the train, she grew up, she moved on. It was
what it was. But when Beatrice herself passes on, that
(35:24):
won't be the end of the Orphan Train story. Descendants,
historians and budding historians like Clara Isaacson are still telling
it today. Does this give you kind of a new
appreciation of the importance of preserving history. I believe it does. Yeah,
and especially this movement, because it's not well known at all.
(35:47):
And I've joined the little community of the Orphan Train
rider people trying to keep the story alive, and the
main way of preserving it is through Orphan Train reunions.
When they first started in the nineteen sixties. They were
places for the writers themselves together. What these writers would
do with stand up and tell their stories, and I
(36:09):
found them so intriguing and so interesting. These riders when
they got together, they celebrated for three straight days. Unstruck
by how you used the word celebrate, What do you
mean celebrate? They celebrated their togetherness as orphan trained brothers
(36:29):
and sisters. But as the number of riders has dwindled,
they've become a chance for descendants to share memories and
stories of their loved ones who have passed on. It's
quite amazing. In fact, we feel very much a kinship
with each other. We all know what our parent felt
or our grandparents felt, and soon, hopefully a grandchildren of
(36:52):
these writers will take over the legacy of the Orphan
Train movement isn't easy to quantify. While all the ers
were impacted by their new communities and families, many grew
up to make their own impact on the world. The
kids went on to serve in the Civil War, World
War One, World War two, Korea. We have some that
(37:13):
served in Vietnam. Just thinking politically, you know, speaking the
people who served in our state governments in our Congress.
Just some of the Orphan Train riders who went on
to lead lives of distinction. Andrew Burke became the second
governor of the state of North Dakota. His friend John
(37:33):
Greene Brady, who wrote the same Orphan Train, would become
governor of the Territory of Alaska. Henry L. Jost became
mayor of Kansas City, Missouri, his nickname the Orphan Boy
Mayor before joining the United States Congress. Joe Aya would
become head football coach at Louisiana Tech University and inducted
(37:53):
into the College Football Hall of Fame. And while we
can't confirm it, there's a longstanding rumor in the orphan
train community that a former United States Supreme Court justice
was a writer, but kept its secret because of the stigma.
If you think you know who it was, let us know.
The writers certainly made their mark. The Children's Aid Society
(38:15):
estimates that there are over two million Orphan Train descendants
alive today. Yeah, they helped shape America, But on a
personal level, the trains meant something different to each child
who wrote them. For Anna Fuchs, it was the best
possible solution to a terrible situation. It took a lot
(38:36):
of kids off of the streets of New York who
might have become prostitutes and beggars and thieves, and gave
them another chance of life. For her sister Margaret, though
its benefits couldn't justify the pain it caused for that time.
I guess it was as good as anything. It was
all it was, but I certainly can't go along with it.
(38:58):
I feel that the idea of taking children and having
them lose all contact with any any of the relatives,
I think is wrong. And Harrison never let the inauspicious
start to her life slow her down. I've had a
good life, you think so. Yes, I just took opportunities
(39:18):
when they came, and when I couldn't find the opportunities,
I lived with what was there. But it's Renee Wendinger's
perspective that will stick with me the longest. I am
a grandmother, and every time my grandchildren have turned the
age of two, I look at them and I think, oh,
(39:41):
my gosh, this is what my mother would have looked
like when she boarded that train at Grand Central Terminal.
And I really cannot imagine that little child getting on
a train to somewhere to nowhere. I have no idea
what my life is going to be like. Wow, and
(40:05):
two year olds is so vulnerable, absolutely so vulnerable. It
hits your heart. You know, I don't know anyone that
does not have a heart for any child. Next time
(40:28):
on Mobituaries, Fred Ormiston joins me for a salute to
the ultimate square and Badass bandleader and TV host Lawrence Welk.
Could it be seen as something a little bit like
and I'm not trying to be like make a shocking comparison,
but like it's a little bit of like what the
Grateful Dead did in that like just keep going, just
(40:52):
keep going. This is definitely the first Lawrence Well Grateful
Dead comparison ever. But I totally hear what you're saying.
I certainly hope you enjoyed this mobituary. May I ask
you to please rate and review our podcast. You can
also follow Mobituaries on Facebook and Instagram, and you can
follow me Morocca on Twitter at Morocca. For more great
(41:13):
content about the Orphan Trains, please visit mobituaries dot com.
You can subscribe to Mobituaries wherever you get your podcasts.
This episode of Mobituaries was produced by Harry Wood and
Gideon Evans. Our team of producers also includes Megan Marcus
and me Morocca. It was edited by Harry Wood and
engineered by Dan de Zula. Indispensable support from Genius Daneski,
(41:38):
Kate mccauliffe, Sam Egan, Renee Wendinger, Shalley, George Jason Saca,
Alberto Rovina, Richard Roher, and everyone at CBS News Radio.
Thank you to the New York Daily News for letting
me join you for your one hundredth anniversary celebration, and
to the New York Foundling for welcoming us to your
one hundred and fiftieth anniversary that it's a competition. Thanks
(42:01):
also to CBS News correspondent Bob McNamara for his two
thousand and two interview of Anne Harrison. We'd like to
thank Greg Markway, the families of Anna and Margaret Fuchs
and Anne Harrison, Beatrice Foytek and her family, and Linda Fomer,
the orphan trained descendant and researcher who connected us to
Beatrice special Thanks to our bold, budding young historians from
(42:26):
National History Day, Addie Skilling, Tucker Ulshevie, Jacob Reid, Evelyn Carpenter,
Katie Marakovitz, Jack Anderson, Jader Briggs, Megan Swancutt, Datona Foley,
Logan Smith, and of course Claire Isaacson and her mom Joy.
Our theme music is written by Daniel Hart and as always,
undying thanks to Rand Morrison and John carp without whom
(42:50):
Mobituaries couldn't live. Hi, It's Moe. If you're enjoying Mobituaries
the podcast, may I invite you to check out Mobituaries
the book. It's chock full of stories not in the podcast.
(43:10):
Celebrities who put their butts on the line, sports teams
that threw in the towel for good, forgotten fashions, defunct diagnoses,
presidential candidacies that cratered whole countries that went caput. And dragons, Yes, dragons,
you see. People used to believe the dragons will reel
until just get the book. You can order Mobituaries the
(43:31):
Book from any online bookseller, or stop by your local
bookstore and look for me when I come to your city.
Tour information and lots more at mobituaries dot com
Host
Mo Rocca
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