0:01

Hi, it's Moe. We're off through

0:03

the new year, but I wanted to share

0:05

another one of my favorite stories with you

0:07

before we return with our final

0:09

episode of the season. It's about

0:12

the largely forgotten social experiment

0:14

known as the Orphan Train Movement.

0:18

From eighteen fifty four to nineteen twenty

0:20

nine, more than a quarter million

0:22

abandoned or orphaned children

0:25

were placed on trains, taking

0:27

them from East coast cities to

0:29

the Midwest and beyond to

0:31

live with new families, the

0:34

largest mass migration of children

0:36

in American history. Today,

0:39

two million Americans are descendants

0:42

of these courageous riders. In

0:44

twenty nineteen, we looked back

0:46

at their often heartbreaking journeys

0:49

and tracked down the last known

0:51

survivor. It's a story

0:53

that moves me as much now as

0:56

it did when we first told it. As

0:58

always, thank you for listening.

1:02

Hi.

1:03

My name is Addie Skilman, and this is

1:05

Loving Versus Virginia, the stepping

1:07

stone for equality in America.

1:11

Every year, at the National History

1:13

Day Contest, middle and high school

1:15

kids from across the country gather to

1:18

compete, presenting on a range

1:20

of historical topics,

1:22

therefore turning the times reward to Victory.

1:24

Rysler appeal taking a stand

1:27

against prohibition.

1:28

Root sixty sis road possibilities.

1:31

What chaplin,

1:34

Missouri?

1:34

Alcoholis?

1:35

Let's all so great to get your kids all

1:39

Rude sixty six.

1:41

But the topic that grabbed my attention was

1:43

one presented by a fifteen year old

1:45

from Minnesota, Claire Isaacson.

1:48

Orphan Train, the compromise that

1:50

the children on the right trucks.

1:52

I'd never heard of the Orphan Train, but

1:54

from her first line, Claire had me

1:57

hooked.

1:57

Your parents are not your

2:00

parents, Your

2:02

past is not your

2:04

past. Your life begins

2:07

when you are chosen.

2:12

Your life begins when you were chosen,

2:15

an apt way to describe the Orphan

2:17

Train, a mostly forgotten nineteenth

2:19

century movement that rescued abandoned

2:22

children from the crowded streets of East

2:24

Coast cities and delivered them

2:26

by train to new families across

2:29

the country. In her presentation,

2:31

Claire channeled real life Orphan

2:34

Train rider Victoria Moe, a

2:36

child of Irish immigrants, as she

2:38

made the trip west.

2:40

We cruss our fingers and prayed

2:42

that we get a loving home. Many

2:45

older children are scared and tried

2:47

to run. Our pasts

2:49

were left behind on that train station. We

2:52

were going to have a totally different life

2:55

and our new homes.

3:00

I spoke to Claire after her performance,

3:02

and I'm a little embarrassed that

3:04

I'd never even heard of this before.

3:07

Yeah, I know, it's crazy, and

3:10

that's why I'm thankful that I did the topics

3:12

so I can hopefully make more

3:14

people know about it, because it's really

3:17

a secret and kind of hidden.

3:19

How big was this movement?

3:21

Well, a quarter million

3:24

children removed west from eighteen

3:26

fifty four to nineteen twenty nine.

3:28

A quarter million people. That's like the

3:30

population of Cleveland. That's a lot of

3:32

people. As

3:35

I dug into our archives at CBS

3:37

News, more voices began to

3:39

surface, voices of orphan trained

3:42

riders from years past, all

3:44

of them children who had been lifted from

3:46

dire situations and scattered

3:49

across the country for hope of a

3:51

better life.

3:55

They sent me out west

3:57

to Colorado Springs. I went

3:59

to Wayne County, Michigan.

4:02

I had never heard of anything like Kansas.

4:05

In this episode, we'll tell you the story

4:07

of the largest mass migration of

4:09

children in American history,

4:12

and I'll travel to Texas to talk

4:14

to the last known surviving orphan

4:16

train rider. They took you when you were

4:18

such a little baby of us.

4:20

The Smallest, Small, Smallest

4:22

one London Home train.

4:24

From CBS Sunday Morning, and Simon

4:27

and Schuster. I'm Morocca

4:29

and this is mobituaries, This

4:35

mobid the Orphan Train.

4:39

May thirty first, nineteen twenty

4:41

nine, death of an

4:43

American experiment extra

4:51

extra. Read all about it the Boston molasses

4:54

disaster of nineteen nineteen. It's

4:57

a slow reader. If you happen

4:59

to be outside Penn Station in New

5:01

York City last June, you might have seen

5:03

a familiar face. What else h

5:06

extract star. I read all about it Warren Harding

5:08

dead. It was the one hundredth

5:11

anniversary of the New York Daily News,

5:13

and I had joined their street team for

5:15

the day to pass out papers. Look,

5:18

I love any opportunity to shout random

5:20

historical facts at strangers were extract

5:22

I read all about it, the Sultan, the Swat credit

5:25

to the Yankees, call the bay Rute

5:27

News you want. I

5:30

love the baby Ruth thing, but I also wanted

5:33

to get a feel for what it was like to be

5:35

a newsye on the streets of New York. You

5:37

know, newsies, they're the plucky dancing

5:39

paper boys from that disney musically loved.

5:49

But it turns out it wasn't all song and dance.

5:53

Newsies worked long hours on poor

5:55

wages. Most of them were abandoned

5:57

children, and in the mid eighteen hundred

6:00

It's New York City had a crisis

6:02

of abandoned children. Enter

6:04

Charles Loring Brace.

6:06

Charles Loring Brace, from a young age to

6:08

his dying day, really tried

6:11

to be the best he could

6:14

be for others.

6:15

Say, George is the head curator of

6:17

the National Orphan Train Complex in

6:19

Concordia, Kansas. And to

6:21

tell the story of the Orphan Train, you

6:24

have to tell the story of Charles Laring

6:26

Brace, who was born in eighteen twenty

6:28

six into a well to do family in

6:30

Lichfield's, Connecticut. What was

6:33

he raised to do?

6:35

Yeah?

6:36

Well, his father, who was a teacher, thought

6:38

that Charles would follow in his footsteps, and

6:40

he thought, okay, Charles is going to be a teacher. And then

6:42

Charles decides to be a pastor. But

6:44

then he realizes that you don't have to be a pastor

6:47

that stands behind a pulpit.

6:49

The patrician Charles was going to

6:51

become a missionary, an idea

6:53

that greatly concerned his father, because

6:55

being a pastor, you know, it's kind of nice you

6:57

get invited over to dinner, you've got a nice place

7:00

where you live. But I mean, when you're a missionary,

7:02

it's you're kind of rolling up your sleeves and getting out

7:04

there.

7:04

He truly jumped into

7:07

the depths that were being ignored.

7:10

In the eighteen fifties, mass immigration

7:12

from Europe, mostly Irish and German

7:15

Catholics, overwhelmed New York

7:17

City. Poor sanitation and

7:19

wild pigs roaming the streets spread

7:22

diseases like cholera and tuberculosis.

7:25

Non Existent labor laws meant unsustainable

7:28

wages and unsafe working conditions.

7:31

And while the wretched state of affairs

7:33

touched people of all ages, children

7:35

felt the effects hardest.

7:38

There was in fantaside happening

7:40

in New York, where these kids were actually

7:43

literally dying in the streets, in

7:45

the gutters. These babies were tossed

7:48

out of homes.

7:49

Renee Wendinger has written several books

7:51

about the orphan train movement. She

7:54

has a personal connection to the subject.

7:56

Her mother's Sophia was a rider.

7:59

Have you ever wondered what would have happened

8:01

to your mother. Had she stayed in New York.

8:05

I don't think in that timeframe she would

8:07

have survived.

8:08

Charles Loring Brace was determined

8:11

to help remember the newsiaes. He

8:13

created lodging houses for them, but

8:16

there were far more children in need than

8:18

there were jobs for newsboys. Give

8:20

me a sense of the scale of the problem.

8:23

At one point they say ten thousand kids

8:25

are on the street. At another turn, it's

8:27

thirty.

8:27

Thousand, thirty

8:30

thousand homeless children at

8:32

a time when New York had fewer than six

8:34

hundred thousand people total. Charles

8:37

Loring Brace saw all this firsthand.

8:40

Is eighteen fifty three. In the February of that year.

8:42

He starts going out into

8:44

the streets and quickly realizes

8:48

that we're spending more money imprisoning

8:51

children because you could be arrested for being a

8:53

vagrant child, and he wants to help.

8:56

Now.

8:56

Orphanages existed back then, but

8:59

they were overcrowded, and so called

9:01

poorhouses put children and adults

9:03

together, a dangerous situation

9:06

for kids. So maybe

9:08

it was best to get them out of New York

9:10

altogether.

9:12

He really believed in the idea of getting kids

9:14

out of the city and out of.

9:16

Vice, vice seems

9:18

like the perfect word what he sees

9:20

going on in the cities of these kids. He just

9:22

sees it as kind of a cauldron

9:24

of sinfulness, basically.

9:27

But he really doesn't see a way for children

9:30

to grow up and not be touched by

9:32

it, not be drawn into it,

9:34

to live in an orphanage and

9:37

then be let out at eighteen and not fall

9:39

into a prison.

9:41

So Brace comes up with a plan to

9:44

move children en mass to a

9:46

place where they'll stand a better chance. Put

9:49

simply, Charles Loving Brace says,

9:51

we're going to put some kids on a train.

9:53

Yeah.

9:54

In eighteen fifty three, Brace founds

9:56

the Children's Aid Society to

9:58

help carry out his grand play. First,

10:01

he needs to find people willing to take

10:03

in abandoned children.

10:05

He basically selects a community

10:08

where he knows someone. They're

10:10

going to go through that church and require

10:13

that people who apply for them bring

10:15

two references from their pastor

10:17

and from their courthouse, and

10:19

they're going to place them out under

10:21

the guardianship of the Children's Aid Society.

10:24

Why is he confident that they're even going to be

10:26

placed I.

10:27

Think he truly believed that people weren't

10:29

going to come to New York and take kids out of orphanages.

10:32

But if he brought them to them,

10:35

put them in their face, there

10:37

was no way they could say no. And

10:39

so he took a chance.

10:41

Brace makes a deal with a pastor

10:43

he knows in the small town of

10:45

Dowagiac, Michigan, and

10:48

the Children's Aid Society begins

10:50

to gather the forty five children

10:52

who will be the passengers on the

10:54

first orphan train.

10:56

The majority come from the New York Juvenile

10:58

Asylum, and technically that first

11:01

train we now know by historical records,

11:04

is paid for in half by

11:07

children they had studied your jubil asylum.

11:09

Were any of the kids coerced, pressured

11:12

or is this something that they

11:14

all wanted?

11:15

It's seemingly like they wanted it, But of

11:17

course what's the alternative.

11:21

Now?

11:22

Orphan train is a slight misnomer.

11:24

It takes multiple trains and boats

11:27

to get from New York City to Michigan. For

11:29

many of these children, it's their first time

11:32

ever leaving New York City.

11:34

How scary that must have been on the choppy water

11:36

and the cliffs and

11:38

how many trees there are.

11:41

For these kids, it must have been like going to another planet.

11:43

Oh, absolutely, a memory of

11:45

This kind of crossing even made it

11:48

into Claire's Orphan Train performance.

11:50

I remember crossing the Hudson River.

11:53

Oh the wonder that filled our eyes.

11:56

Oh we had ever seen sorrow and pain?

11:59

What's the world is supposed for us?

12:03

The children arrive into Watchiack in

12:05

late September eighteen fifty four, and

12:08

no one, not the children, not their

12:10

caretaker, not the townspeople, really

12:12

knows what to expect. So they get

12:14

off the train into Watchiack, and then what happens.

12:17

The kids are so excited. They're finally in Michigan,

12:19

their final destination, and they take

12:21

off.

12:23

That's right, they run in

12:25

all directions. Look, they're kids, they've

12:27

been cooped up on a train for days. Their caretaker

12:29

can't keep up. He just goes to wait

12:32

for them at the hotel.

12:33

Finally the kids start rolling in and

12:35

they have stolen everything

12:38

green apples and pumpkins and acorns,

12:40

and have shoved grass and

12:42

leaves up their shirts, up their shirt

12:45

sleeves, in their hats, down

12:47

their pants, in their pockets because they're

12:49

so excited. They've never seen everything

12:52

where it grows.

12:54

And I'm curious, do they know that you're not supposed

12:56

to steal. Possibly not,

12:59

And I'm just I'm trying to imagine what

13:02

the people in the town are thinking.

13:04

I bet they're alarmed.

13:07

They probably are alarmed. The

13:09

people of Dowagiac, after all, are

13:12

scheduled to meet the orphan train riders

13:14

that day at church. You

13:16

can imagine that already they're regretting

13:19

welcoming the orphans to town. But

13:22

when they get to church, they're greeted

13:24

with a surprise.

13:27

The first thing that they really hear from the kids are

13:29

Sunday hymns, and

13:32

they are singing comy centers,

13:34

poor and needy.

13:42

The kids went over the town.

13:44

They're placed within a week.

13:46

All of them, so this first ride

13:48

had to be considered a success.

13:50

Absolutely.

13:51

Two months later, a second train

13:53

leaves New York and the orphan train

13:56

movement begins in earnest

14:00

and now a pop quiz because

14:03

I love pop quizzz. It's

14:06

easy to overlook, but so much of

14:08

America's history, innovation, arts,

14:11

and entertainment politics has

14:13

been driven by individuals who grew

14:15

up adopted or in foster families.

14:18

I'm going to give you some clues and you

14:20

have to guess which famous orphan

14:22

I'm describing. If you get two

14:24

out of three, you win. There

14:27

are no prizes. Our first

14:29

clue. Before this, former president,

14:32

Stanford graduate and self made millionaire

14:34

was roasted in the Broadway musical Annie

14:37

for his role presiding over the Great Depression.

14:39

He was raised by distant relatives

14:42

in Oregon after losing both of his

14:44

parents to pneumonia.

14:53

It's Herbert Hoover fun fact.

14:56

One of his nicknames was the Hermit,

14:58

author of Palo Alto. Next,

15:01

this fast food mogul, whose grandma's

15:04

advice not to cut corners inspired

15:06

his decision to make his iconic burgers

15:09

square instead of round, was adopted

15:11

as a baby and used his wealth

15:13

and influence to help others with childhoods

15:16

like his, creating a foundation

15:19

that still supports foster children around

15:21

the country. I'm

15:24

Dave Thomas. I started

15:26

Wendy's with one restaurant. It's Dave

15:28

Thomas. Fun fact. Before he

15:31

created Wendy's, he was the mastermind

15:33

behind the fried Chicken bucket that put KFC

15:36

on the map. Finally,

15:38

this adopted child would become famous

15:41

at the ripe old age of ten, playing

15:43

the lead role in a series about a family

15:46

living on the prairie in Minnesota.

15:48

In the eighteen seventies, I

15:51

decided something.

15:53

What's that happening home is the nicest

15:55

word there is.

15:57

It's Melissa Gilbert. Her show

15:59

Lit on the Prairie would have storylines

16:02

revolving around orphans throughout its run,

16:04

including one played by friend of the podcast,

16:07

Chason Bateman.

16:09

And we hope you meant what you said about how

16:11

you want us to stay, because

16:14

that's what we want.

16:15

To Speaking

16:17

of little houses and prairies, let's

16:19

get back on that orphan train. As

16:24

the Children's Aid Society grew, it sent

16:26

hundreds, then thousands of children all

16:28

across the country. Now almost

16:30

none of the riders are alive today. But

16:33

back in nineteen seventy nine, my CBS

16:35

Sunday Morning colleague the Great Martha

16:38

Teichner interviewed sisters Anna

16:40

and Margaret Fuchs. They and

16:42

their third sister, Helen, rode

16:44

the orphan train when they were just ten,

16:47

nine and seven years old.

16:49

They were orphaned after losing both their

16:51

parents to tuberculosis. Margaret

16:54

remembered seeing their mother's burial.

16:57

The thing that really got to me was

16:59

seen in that coffin being lowered, and

17:02

I can remember trying to jump into that grade

17:05

because that was my mother down there.

17:07

When the children were put on a train in nineteen

17:09

twenty four, they didn't even know where

17:11

they were headed. As Anna remembered, I

17:15

had.

17:15

Very strong ideas

17:17

that I was going to California. I

17:20

didn't know there was any other stake

17:22

besides New York and California, as

17:24

far as I was concerned.

17:26

Margaret described their arrival in

17:28

the tiny town of McPherson, Kansas.

17:30

First thing I did was to look around. How

17:33

come they're letting us out in the middle of nowhere. I couldn't

17:36

see any buildings. I was looking for skyscrapers.

17:38

Whenever orphans sent by the Society

17:41

arrived at their destination, they were

17:43

lined up on a train platform

17:45

or on the stage of a theater so that families

17:47

could walk down the line and pick out their

17:50

preferred kid. As author

17:52

Renee Wendinger explains, this

17:54

process actually gave rise to a

17:56

familiar turn of phrase.

17:57

Some of the children would have stood on a little

18:00

box called the soap box, and

18:02

that's how the term put up for adoption

18:05

became known as we know it today.

18:07

If it sounds impersonal, well

18:09

that's an understatement. Here's how

18:12

fifteen year old Claire Isaacson

18:14

described it in her National History

18:16

Day performance.

18:17

Ladies were usually chosen first, then

18:20

the tougher, stronger looking voice.

18:22

US girls were usually chosen vast. We

18:25

watched people come and go and

18:28

inspect of the children. We saw

18:30

them looking at their teeth and even

18:32

having some boys to push us.

18:35

Martha Teichner asked Anna Fuchs

18:37

about her experience.

18:38

Did you ever feel any outrage or any

18:41

any anger at the fact that you were being

18:43

kind of lined up there and say, okay, I

18:46

got a kid.

18:47

No, I don't think so. I

18:50

think it's a matter of you

18:52

sort of blame yourself for having lost

18:54

your folks.

18:55

The sisters were all selected, but

18:57

by different families.

18:59

How big thought was that when

19:01

you were standing there the day that you

19:03

were both selected by families, seeing

19:05

each other and seeing goodbyes and

19:08

wondering what's going to happen?

19:10

I think it was sort of the case that there was so much

19:12

confusion and all that we

19:15

didn't really have that much chance

19:18

to think about it, did we.

19:19

I don't think the thought

19:21

entered my mind at all until

19:26

I got there and sat on that step ladder

19:28

in the kitchen, and then it finally hit

19:30

me. You are alone

19:33

that was when you started, and that's when I start

19:35

in.

19:38

Sibling separation was an added

19:40

trauma thousands of orphan writers

19:42

suffered over the years.

19:44

Were you scared, Yes,

19:47

I think we just wanted to be sure that we were going to

19:49

be close enough together so that we get

19:51

to wouldn't lose each

19:53

other.

19:55

Why was that so important?

19:56

What was it's

19:58

We were family and that was all the family

20:01

there was.

20:03

Even though Anna and Margaret were both

20:05

taken in by families in the same town,

20:08

their lives took very different turns.

20:11

Anna became extremely close to

20:13

her new mother, Jenny Bankston.

20:15

She was a person I could trust

20:18

when I first came here. When I came

20:20

out here, that was one thing I

20:22

did not trust anyone.

20:25

I had lost faith in people.

20:28

I really feel like I've had two mothers.

20:30

Margaret, meanwhile, was taken in by

20:33

the Runian family, who ran a local

20:35

boarding house. They enlisted

20:37

Margaret to help with cleaning and cooking

20:39

for guests. It was a pretty

20:41

cold, business like relationship.

20:43

I always had the feeling that I was there in place of a

20:45

maid.

20:46

Now these weren't formal adoptions,

20:49

at least not at first, but the family's

20:51

writers ended up with were bound

20:53

by contract. Parents had

20:55

to make sure the children went to school

20:57

and church. They were expectationsations

21:00

for the kids as well.

21:02

Yes, the child had to you know, be a child

21:04

and listen to those parents and help

21:06

out around the house, and a household at that moment

21:09

operated like a little business, whether

21:11

you were the birth child, or the adopted child, or

21:13

the foster child.

21:14

Basically, what you're saying is being a kid in the nineteenth

21:16

century wasn't very fun. No,

21:19

no, absolutely not. But

21:21

that didn't make it any easier for

21:23

orphaned children hoping to find a family.

21:26

Arriving to one like Margaret's was hard.

21:29

I honestly don't remember whether I call them mom

21:31

and dad or whether I call them mister ms Venion.

21:33

What does that tell you about your experience.

21:36

Well, just that there

21:38

wasn't that kind of love there,

21:41

well, affection of any kind.

21:43

Does it hurt you that you never had that?

21:45

Does it?

21:46

Oh?

21:46

Yes, yes,

21:50

particularly when I knew the kind of

21:52

a home that Anna was in, where she was getting

21:55

that kind of affection

21:57

and all.

21:59

Mart situation wasn't rare,

22:02

but spurred by the Children's Aid Society's

22:04

success, other organizations

22:07

began to follow suit, and in eighteen

22:09

sixty nine, the second largest

22:11

orphan train institution began

22:17

earlier. I quizzed you on some of America's

22:19

most prominent real life orphans,

22:22

but they're not nearly as famous as some fictional

22:25

orphans. Remember that Herbert

22:27

Hoover song from about ten minutes ago,

22:29

Well, it's from a musical centered around

22:31

an orphan.

22:32

Why any kid would want to be an orphan is

22:34

beyond me.

22:36

Not little

22:42

orphan Annie was a star, first of

22:45

comic strips, then of the Broadway

22:47

stage. In my opinion, the nineteen

22:49

eighty two movie is only worth mentioning

22:51

for Carol Burnett's Miss Hannigan.

22:53

And if this floor don't shine,

22:56

I could turn with the pressure building

22:59

or becks.

23:01

Unders stamp yes Miss

23:04

Again.

23:05

On television, the nineteen eighties, as It

23:08

Happens, were a boom time for

23:10

orphan centered sitcoms, starting

23:12

with Arnold and Willis on Different

23:14

Strokes.

23:15

Don't get too used at his place?

23:17

Who'ld you talk about? Willis?

23:19

And there was Punky Brewster.

23:21

What doesn't anyone want me?

23:23

What's wrong with me? Nothing's

23:25

wrong with you?

23:27

You don't want me?

23:28

Neither did my mom, That's.

23:30

Why she did?

23:30

She?

23:31

And who could forget Webster.

23:34

I'm r getting used to you guys.

23:38

And you know what, chance, we're

23:41

getting kind of used to you too.

23:44

It's surprising, given our love of

23:46

a good orphan story, that the Orphan

23:48

Train has been so overlooked. By

23:52

the time the Civil War ended in eighteen

23:54

sixty five, the Children's Aid Society

23:57

had placed twelve hundred children with

23:59

families in America's heartland, but

24:02

Charles Loring Brace's organization placed

24:04

children primarily in Protestant

24:06

homes, regardless of the fact that

24:09

many of those babies were born to Catholic

24:11

immigrant mothers. Enter the

24:13

New York Foundling Hospital once

24:16

again, Shaley George from the National

24:18

Orphan Train Complex.

24:20

The New York Founding Hospital starts in eighteen sixty

24:23

nine with two sisters, Sister Theresa

24:25

and Sister Anne, and then they're

24:27

head of their foundling sister

24:30

Mary Irene Fitzgibbons. And

24:32

so they start the New York Founding Hospital as tiny

24:34

little Brownstone and within

24:36

the night a baby's left on their doorstep.

24:39

The demand for their services caught

24:41

them totally off guard, and.

24:43

By the end of the month they have forty five

24:45

infants. By the end of the year, they have over one hundred,

24:48

and so their mission

24:50

turned to placing Catholic

24:53

babies in Catholic homes.

24:54

Not all of those babies were Catholic when they

24:56

were left at the door of the Foundling Hospital, but

24:59

as one Orphan trained riders set about the

25:01

Foundling, you.

25:02

Might go in one way, but you'll leave a.

25:04

Catholic Following in the tracks of the

25:06

Children's Aid Society, the Foundling

25:08

started placing children on trains headed

25:10

west, but these children were

25:12

much younger, mostly infants, and

25:15

specifically chosen to resemble the

25:17

families they were joining.

25:18

They believe that placing out younger children

25:21

who matched the family by

25:24

eye color, hair color, age, and gender would

25:26

cut back on the stigma from the surrounding

25:28

community because they looked like the

25:30

family that they were placed in.

25:32

So it's sort of the reverse of Children's Aid Society,

25:34

where the Children's Aid Society sends kids

25:37

out and then prospective

25:40

parents choose the kids.

25:42

Then here it's more of a

25:45

mail order system, right. Basically, that's

25:47

what happened to Anne Harrison, who

25:50

was featured on CBS Sunday Morning back

25:52

in two thousand and two when she was

25:54

a spry ninety three.

25:56

They had asked for a two

25:58

and a half year old girl

26:00

with brown hair and brown eyes.

26:03

Well they got a two and a half

26:05

year old girl that had

26:08

auburn hair and hazel

26:10

eyes, but that

26:12

was close enough.

26:14

Because she was so young when she arrived.

26:16

Anne grew up not even knowing she was

26:18

adopted. Her father made

26:20

sure that.

26:21

Her father basically threatened

26:23

the entire town to not tell

26:25

her she was adopted. Her father

26:28

never wanted her to feel less than to

26:30

be thought of, that she was not truly

26:35

his daughter.

26:35

But despite her father's best efforts,

26:38

the other kids and her own teachers

26:40

never quite accepted her.

26:42

I was never popular in school, and

26:44

that bothered me, and I seemed

26:47

to always be the odd ball. Orphans

26:50

or adopted children were not really

26:53

as good class as the other people.

26:57

I think that was just a general thought

27:00

that you were a bad seed if you came

27:03

from people that they didn't know.

27:07

So a lot of the orphan train writers had

27:09

to contend with people who were not

27:12

pleased with them being in town. The

27:14

idea is that you're

27:17

going to inherit traits of poverty,

27:20

of vice from parents that some

27:22

never.

27:22

Knew, almost like the orphan train writers

27:25

are tainted.

27:25

Yeah, the negativity of immigration is

27:28

there from the get go, the negativity

27:30

of your parents didn't want you,

27:33

your parents lost you because they were a

27:35

drunk or abusive or in prison,

27:38

and.

27:39

Would grow up move to Chicago and

27:41

become a professional nightclub singer. She

27:43

wouldn't find out she was adopted until she

27:46

was twenty seven years old, and

27:48

that wasn't the only surprise waiting for the

27:50

woman who'd been baptized to Catholic.

27:52

In nineteen eighty nine,

27:55

I get this letter from the

27:57

New York Health Department. Open it up,

28:00

and there's my original birth certificate,

28:04

Mabel Reuben. My

28:06

mother's name was of

28:10

Jenny Ruben. My father's

28:12

name was Moe Kohn.

28:15

Well. I looked at that and I just

28:18

split into laughter.

28:20

She just thought, well, I'll just go

28:22

on and add a Star of David to my crucifix

28:24

necklace and just keep going, because

28:27

what can I do?

28:30

Well? My Jewish friends said, we

28:33

know it all about.

28:37

The Foundling and Children's Aid Society

28:39

together set the Lion's share of those

28:41

two hundred and fifty thousand children

28:44

west until the last orphan

28:46

train left for Sulfur Springs, Texas,

28:48

on May thirty first, nineteen twenty

28:51

nine, the world had simply

28:53

outgrown the orphan train. Communities

28:55

in the Midwest now had their own abandoned

28:58

children to help. The story

29:00

doesn't end there. We

29:03

know how a quarter million children found

29:05

their way west, but what happened

29:08

after they grew up?

29:11

Do you know the name that was given to you at

29:13

bern.

29:17

Sofia?

29:19

Who names your Sofia?

29:22

For my mother and my dad?

29:25

That's Renee Wendinger interviewing

29:27

her mother, Sophia Hillesheim

29:29

Kaminski. Sophia had

29:31

been an orphan train rider taken in

29:33

by Anna Grime, a single

29:35

woman in Springfield, Minnesota, who

29:38

spoke only German.

29:40

She really didn't know how to raise

29:42

children because she could not be English.

29:45

So I had to learn German.

29:48

And when I went forward to school, then

29:50

I had.

29:50

To relearned the English

29:53

because I had only talked German all the time.

29:55

So what did you do for entertainment?

29:59

I didn't have any entertainment. That had to work

30:01

all the time.

30:02

But that wasn't the worst of it. Was

30:04

Anna physically abusive?

30:06

Yeah she was. She had a

30:08

little whip that she kept in the corner.

30:10

It was a snake handled whip,

30:12

and by that I mean it was sort of a leather

30:15

handled whip, and that's the way

30:17

she would flog her and she'd

30:19

say, now you remember this, and

30:21

remember not to do that again.

30:27

Sophia's orphan train story is a

30:29

sad one, but it doesn't end at her

30:31

childhood. She would grow up to

30:33

become someone vastly different from

30:35

Anna Grime. Here's how Renee

30:38

describes her mother.

30:39

She just had such a warm, open heart.

30:42

There is no one that ever

30:44

knew her would say anything

30:47

bad about her, because she was just

30:50

a warm, loving person.

30:52

You know, it's funny that your mother's story

30:54

in so many of these other orphan train writers'

30:56

stories. It sort of underlines

30:59

how vulnerable children

31:01

are, but also how resilient.

31:04

They were the type of people that would just sort

31:06

of kind of pull the bootstraps

31:08

up and they would carry on. But

31:11

my mother would always say, I

31:13

was just so thankful to have a roof over my

31:16

head.

31:16

Your mother had a lot to be angry about.

31:18

She really did, but she did not have

31:21

that in her heart.

31:22

And you know, I don't know if that's

31:24

something that we inherit Is

31:26

it biological? Is do

31:28

we have the influences around

31:31

us? Is it our geography? I have no

31:33

idea, but her arms

31:35

were always outreached to people.

31:38

But Renee's mother didn't find peace

31:41

until near the end of her own life. Did

31:43

your mother ever forgive Anna?

31:45

She did not forgive

31:48

her until she was

31:50

about I think she was like ninety

31:53

six years old, and

31:56

she asked me one day

31:58

if I would take her to a cemetery.

32:01

She said, it's time. I

32:03

need to go to the cemetery and I need to

32:05

forgive her.

32:07

So you took your ninety six year old mother to

32:09

the cemetery. And what did she say

32:12

when she was at the tombstone? Havanna.

32:15

I have no idea what she spoke

32:18

inside her heart and

32:20

we walked away and she said,

32:23

it's done. I needed to

32:25

do that, She said, I should have done that a long

32:27

time ago.

32:37

Now, all the Orphan train riders you've

32:39

been hearing from in this episode, Renee's

32:42

mother, Sophia, Anna, and Margaret

32:44

Fuchs, Ann Harrison, they're

32:48

all voices from the past. They're

32:50

all gone. But I

32:52

wanted to talk to a writer myself,

32:55

and so I went down to Texas to

32:58

meet the last known survivor being

33:00

orphan train rider. Okay,

33:05

testing testing right here, I'm

33:08

in a conference room at an assisted

33:10

living facility in East Bernard,

33:12

Texas, an hour outside of Houston.

33:15

Sitting with me, a host of eager

33:17

relatives

33:19

would surrounding ninety seven year

33:21

old Beatrice Voytek, an

33:23

actual orphan train rider.

33:25

The only thing is we know for ninety seven she's

33:28

doing great.

33:29

That's her son, George. You're a terrific looking

33:31

ninety seven and appreciating

33:34

you may be the last surviving orphan

33:37

train rider. How does that feel?

33:39

Well, I'm kind of

33:42

They believe that because I was

33:44

the smallest on that train.

33:46

She's a national treasure. Did

33:49

you hear that?

33:50

No, you're a national treasure.

33:53

You are because you are.

33:54

You absolutely are.

33:57

Well.

33:57

I appreciate that. I'm thinking,

34:00

I think extra from

34:02

any other orphan.

34:03

Beatrice, the daughter of an Irish immigrant,

34:06

was only fourteen months old when she made

34:08

the trip from New York City, landing

34:10

with a Czech family in Texas. She's

34:13

got a fascinating story, but in

34:15

the end, the person that seems least

34:17

interested in it is Beatrice. I

34:21

asked her about discovering she was an orphan

34:23

train rider. You didn't know that you'd

34:25

been adopted.

34:27

I didn't know I was an orphan. I didn't

34:29

know anything. I just read it

34:31

all the time. You mind you mama, You mind

34:33

your mama, And I didn't

34:35

pay attention.

34:36

Could I asked her about her birth

34:38

mother, who was twenty nine when she had her.

34:40

If she used she stood that chance of

34:43

getting pregnant, then she should

34:45

have known that she finet

34:47

to provide for that baby.

34:49

Do you wonder what the rest of her life

34:51

was like?

34:53

You mean my real mother?

34:55

No, I asked Beatrice if

34:57

she ever wondered what she might have missed out

34:59

on having been scooped up and moved

35:01

so far away so young.

35:03

Well, yeah, I mean I was adopted into

35:07

a into a family, and and

35:10

that was my family. There's that,

35:12

you know, that was my life.

35:14

You've never imagined, even for

35:16

a moment, what your life would have been like

35:18

if you stayed in New York.

35:19

Oh yeah, oh yeah, I thought about

35:22

that, America?

35:23

And what did you think?

35:24

What were you?

35:25

Thank God? I'm I'm here in Texas.

35:29

I'm satisfied with my life the way

35:32

it is, and and I'm so

35:34

blessed with you know, the

35:37

people that adopted me

35:39

and and and brought

35:41

me up and raised me right and

35:44

probably much better than my real

35:47

parents.

35:47

With and if you ever

35:49

do want to come to New York, I've got a guest

35:51

room.

35:56

We'll go see a Broadway show. You ever see Phantom

35:59

of the Opera? No, it's

36:01

terrific.

36:02

Yeah.

36:04

There was no dramatic revelation from

36:06

Beatrice, no Rosebud moment.

36:09

She didn't render a sweeping verdict

36:11

on whether the Orphan Train was good or

36:14

bad. As she saw it, She

36:16

rode the train, she grew up,

36:19

she moved on. It was what

36:21

it was. But

36:23

when Beatrice herself passes on, that

36:26

won't be the end of the Orphan Train story.

36:28

Descendants, historians and budding

36:31

historians like Claire Isaacson are

36:33

still telling it today. Does

36:35

this give you kind of

36:38

a new appreciation of the importance

36:40

of preserving history.

36:42

I believe it does.

36:43

Yeah, and especially

36:45

this movement, because it's not

36:48

well known at all. And I've joined the

36:50

little community of the

36:52

Orphan Train rider, people trying to

36:54

keep the story alive.

36:56

And the main way of preserving it is through

36:58

Orphan Train reunions. When they

37:00

first started in the nineteen sixties, they

37:02

were places for the writers themselves to

37:04

gather.

37:05

What these writers would

37:07

do, would stand up and tell their stories.

37:10

And I found them so intriguing

37:12

and so interesting.

37:14

These riders.

37:15

When they got together, they celebrated

37:17

for three straight days.

37:19

I'm struck by how you used the word celebrate.

37:23

What do you mean celebrate?

37:25

They celebrated

37:28

their togethern Us as orphan

37:30

trained brothers and sisters.

37:32

But as the number of riders has dwindled,

37:35

they've become a chance for descendants to

37:37

share memories and stories of their loved

37:39

ones who have passed on.

37:41

It's quite amazing.

37:42

In fact, we feel very much a

37:44

kinship with each other. We

37:46

all know what our parents felt or

37:49

our grandparents felt, and soon,

37:52

hopefully the grandchildren of these writers

37:54

will take over.

37:56

The legacy of the Orphan train movement.

37:58

Isn't easy to quantify. While

38:01

all the writers were impacted by their

38:03

new communities and families, many

38:05

grew up to make their own impact on

38:08

the world.

38:09

The kids went on to serve

38:11

in the Civil War, World War One, World War II,

38:13

Korea. We have some that served in Vietnam.

38:16

Just thinking politically, you know, speaking the

38:19

people who served in our state

38:21

governments, in our Congress.

38:25

Just some of the orphan trained riders who went

38:27

on to lead lives of distinction. Andrew

38:30

Burke became the second governor of

38:32

the state of North Dakota. His

38:34

friend John green Brady, who rode

38:36

the same orphan train, would become governor

38:39

of the Territory of Alaska. Henry

38:41

L. Jost became mayor of Kansas

38:44

City, Missouri, his nickname the

38:46

Orphan Boy Mayor before joining the

38:48

United States Congress. Joe

38:50

Iya would become head football coach

38:52

at Louisiana Tech University and

38:55

inducted into the College Football Hall

38:57

of Fame. And while we can't confirm,

38:59

it's a long standing rumor in

39:01

the orphan trained community that a former

39:03

United States Supreme Court justice

39:06

was a writer, but kept its secret

39:08

because of the stigma. If you think

39:10

you know who it was, let us know. The

39:13

writers certainly made their mark. The

39:16

Children's Aid Society estimates that

39:18

there are over two million Orphan

39:20

trained descendants alive today.

39:23

Yeah, they helped shape America,

39:26

but.

39:26

On a personal level, the trains meant

39:28

something different to each child who rode

39:30

them. For Anna Fuchs,

39:33

it was the best possible solution to

39:35

a terrible situation.

39:37

It took a lot of kids

39:39

off of the streets of New York who might

39:41

have become prostitutes and beggars

39:44

and thieves and gave them another chance

39:46

of life for.

39:47

Her sister Margaret. Though its benefits

39:50

couldn't justify the pain it caused

39:53

for that time.

39:54

I guess it was as good as anything.

39:56

It was all it was, but I certainly

39:58

can't go along with it. I feel

40:00

that the idea of taking

40:03

children and having them lose all contact

40:05

with any of the relatives I think

40:07

is wrong.

40:08

And Harrison never let the inauspicious

40:11

start to her life slow her down.

40:13

I've had a good life, you

40:15

think so.

40:16

Yes, I

40:19

just took opportunities when they came,

40:21

and when I couldn't find the opportunities,

40:24

I lived with what was there.

40:27

But it's Renee Wendinger's perspective

40:30

that will stick with me the longest.

40:33

I am a grandmother, and

40:35

every time my grandchildren

40:37

have turned the age of two, I

40:40

look at them and I think, oh,

40:43

my gosh, this

40:45

is what my mother would have looked

40:47

like when she boarded that train at

40:49

Grand Central terminal. And

40:52

I really cannot imagine that

40:55

little child getting on a

40:57

train to somewhere to know

40:59

where.

41:00

I have no idea what

41:02

my life is going to be like.

41:05

Wow, and two

41:07

year olds is so vulnerable.

41:09

Absolutely so vulnerable, it

41:12

hits your heart. You know, I

41:14

don't know anyone that does not have

41:16

a heart for any child.

41:26

An update since we first

41:28

posted this episode in December twenty

41:30

nineteen, we learned that Beatrice

41:33

Voytech passed away at the age

41:35

of one hundred. Her local newspaper

41:37

wrote that Beatrice started

41:40

life in New York City, but an orphan

41:42

train ride was in her future to

41:44

take her to East Bernard, where she

41:46

lived all her life. I

41:49

am so grateful that I had the

41:51

chance to meet her that day in Texas

41:53

and to learn her remarkable story.

41:58

Mobits will be back next week with

42:00

the story of legendary comic

42:03

Lwanda Page. You may

42:05

know her best as the hilarious aunt esther

42:07

on Sanford and Son.

42:09

You are evil heathen.

42:13

And one of these days the Lord is

42:15

gonna strike you down.

42:18

If he ever decide to get his hands

42:20

dirty.

42:22

But Page was much more than a secondary

42:24

character on a sitcom. A queen

42:27

of comedy. She remains an inspiration

42:29

to comedians including Whoopy

42:32

Goldberg. She as funny as hell,

42:35

Yeah you know, and black women. They will

42:37

tear you up. They will tear you up,

42:39

they will talk about it, they will tell you about yourself.

42:43

I certainly hope you enjoyed this mobituary,

42:46

Nah ask you to please rate and review

42:49

our podcast. You can also follow

42:51

Mobituaries on Facebook and Instagram,

42:53

and you can follow me Morocca on Twitter

42:56

at Morocca. For more great

42:58

content about the Orphan Trains, please

43:00

visit mobituaries dot com. You

43:02

can subscribe to Mobituaries wherever

43:04

you get your podcasts. This episode

43:07

of Mobituaries was produced by Harry

43:09

Wood and Gideon Evans. Our

43:11

team of producers also includes Megan

43:13

Marcus and me Moroka. It

43:16

was edited by Harry Wood and engineered

43:18

by Dan Dezzula. Indispensable

43:21

support from Genius Denesky, Kate

43:23

mccauliffe, Sam Egan, Renee

43:25

Wendinger, Shelley George, Jason

43:28

Sakka, Alberto Robina, Richard

43:30

Roher, and everyone at CBS

43:32

News Radio. Thank you to

43:34

the New York Daily News for letting me join you for

43:37

your one hundredth anniversary celebration,

43:40

and to the New York Foundling for welcoming

43:42

us to your one hundred and fiftieth anniversary,

43:44

not that it's a competition. Thanks also

43:47

to CBS News correspondent Bob

43:49

McNamara for his two thousand and two

43:51

interview of Ann Harrison. We'd

43:54

like to thank Greg mark Way, the

43:56

families of Anna and Margaret Fuchs

43:58

and Anne Harrison, Beatrice Voytek

44:01

and her family, and Linda Fomer,

44:03

the orphan trained descendant and researcher who

44:05

connected us to Beatrice. Special

44:08

thanks to our bold, budding young

44:10

historians from National History Day,

44:12

Addie Skilling, Tucker Olshaby, Jacob

44:15

Reid, Evelyn Carpenter, Katie Merrikovitz,

44:18

Jack Anderson, Jader Briggs, Megan

44:20

swankat Daytona Foley Logan Smith,

44:22

and of course Claire Isaacson and

44:25

her mom Joy. Our theme

44:27

music is written by Daniel Hart and,

44:29

as always, undying thanks

44:31

to Rand Morrison and John carp

44:34

without whom mobituaries couldn't

44:36

live