TRAINS DELIVERED ORPHANS TO WEST
(Please be aware this post was written in 2003 and published at that time in the Houston Chronicle (Houston, Texas) newspaper. Some of the news in this post, therefore, may not be current. Current and future posts on this blog may revisit and update news on this and other posts on this blog. If you have questions and/or suggestions, please send Mic a note using the comment page -Don’t forget to use the orange “subscribe” button to receive new posts-Thanks, Mic)
A story long neglected in American history books is the plight of the Orphan Train Riders. For over seventy five years, from 1853 through the early 1930’s, over 250,000 mostly homeless, abandoned and neglected children were sent west on trains from New York, Boston and other east coast cities.
The program of sending children west was necessitated by over crowding in the cities. Over four Million immigrants had entered the United States between 1840 and 1860 with most of the people settling in the port cities along the Atlantic coast.
Living and working conditions were deplorable. Jobs were scarce, hours long and labor cheap. Job safety was a low priority and job related deaths were common place. Diseases from over crowded and unsanitary living conditions contributed to the high early age death tolls. To top off the situation there was no extended family support system in America. Parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles had been left in the old country and young families had to fend for themselves in the new hostile environment.
To help care for the neglected and orphaned children Charles Loring Brace and a group of business men formed the Children’s Aid Society in New York in 1853. The CAS initiated the concept of using the ever expanding railroad network to inexpensively move children west where they would be placed out among the God-fearing farm homes of the rural west. Many other organizations mimicked and used the same methods of placing out children.
It was believed the families would welcome the children and the new environment would benefit the children by exposing them to good food, clean air and a good work ethic allowing them to develop into mature responsible adults.
The placing out system rendered mixed results. In many cases it worked wonders by giving the family and the child what they each wanted and needed, a sense of family and belonging. In other cases, families simply wanted cheap labor with no bonds while some of the children resented being placed out and would not have been happy anywhere.
One of the underlying themes reunions of Orphan Trains Riders has brought to light is the children’s sense of abandonment. Most former orphan train riders were told to forget the past and look to the future. They felt they rode the one and only orphan train and did not realize there were seventy five years of orphan trains and thousands of orphans train riders like themselves.
Readers interested in learning more about the Orphan Trains and their riders should visit the Orphan Train Heritage Society of America website at http://www.orphantrainriders.com .
STANLEY LECTURES ON LIBRARY DATABASE
Karen Stanley, a genealogical librarian at Clayton Library, will be giving her talk, Be a Power Searcher: Genealogy Research Using Clayton’s Online Databases to three different societies in the Houston area during the month of September. This lecture will describe the online databases available through the Houston Public Library system, how to access and how to use them.
The first lecture will be held at the Harris County Genealogy Society, Thursday September 11, 2003 at 7:00 p.m. in the Community Room of Pasadena Town Square Mall. For more information contact Tommy Burns at 713-472-4703, by email at leburns@hal-pc.org, or visit the society website at http://www.hcgs.org/.
The second lecture will be at the Brazosport Genealogy Society. The society will meet Tuesday September 23 at 7:30 p.m. at the Lake Jackson Library, 250 Circle Way, Lake Jackson. For more information contact Linda Barney at 979-297-9937 or by email at txbarneys@orbitworld.net .
The third lecture will be at the Bay Area Genealogical Society. This society will meet Sunday, Sept 28, 2003 at 5:00 p.m. in the Great Room on the second floor of the University Baptist Church, 16106 Middlebrook Drive in Clear Lake. For more information contact Carolyn Hellen at 281-486-0406 or by email at CRHellen@att.net or visit the society website at ~ http://www.rootsweb.com/~txbags/baygen.html .
