Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1998 11:18:20 -0400 To: Fldollfin@aol.com From: Susan Ryan <sryan@stetson.edu> Copyright 1994 The Times-Picayune Publishing Co. The Times-Picayune May 8, 1994 Sunday, THIRD SECTION: NATIONAL; Pg. A18 LENGTH: 1885 words HEADLINE: TRAUMA CREATED KINSHIP FOR ORPHAN TRAIN RIDERS BYLINE: By KAREN M. THOMAS Dallas Morning News BODY: Lee Nailling remembers at age 9 being excited by the train ride. And then he remembers the horrifying moment when he realized that he and his two brothers were to be separated. Clara Morgan, a 7-year-old girl near the turn of the century, cannot remember getting on the train. She remembers the train arriving in Kansas and being lined up for inspection. And she remembers watching each of her two brothers chosen by new parents. She was not. Marion Strittmatter remembers nothing. All she knows is that when she was 3, the Tchoepe family of 14 met her at the end of her train journey in Skidmore, Okla. They are the orphan train riders, children who long ago found themselves made homeless by hard times, sickly parents or by those who simply gave them away. In Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, Arkansas and other states, the youngsters, who historians call America's early foster children, buried their memories. Few wanted to talk about the day when they realized they were forever distanced from their biological families. For almost a decade, though, that silence has been broken. Each year, the surviving orphan train riders have gathered in several states for reunions. "I want to go," Strittmatter said before an April reunion in Waxahachie, Texas. "Just to see the rest of them again, the rest of the train riders. It means a lot to me." Orphan train riders filled New York orphanages and city streets until the Children's Aid Society and the New York Foundling Hospital began placing the children on trains in 1854 for the rural West. *** Children lived on streets *** "At the time, children were living in alleyways, in slums, and the orphanages were overfilled," said Victor Remer, archivist for the Children's Aid Society. "The secretary of the society conceived of the notion of placing the children in the West to remove them from the terrible environs of the city. In terms of what we know today, it is not the best way. But from what we knew then, it was a very good idea." For the next 75 years, more than 150,000 youngsters were told that in the West, new families would take them into their hearts and homes. The rides ended when the federal government enacted child welfare reforms in 1929. "It was extremely traumatic," said Mary Ellen Johnson, executive director of the Orphan Train Riders Research Center in Springdale, Ark. "In a city like New York, a port city, a lot of men worked on ships. When their wives got sick or died, there was nobody to take care of the children. "Newly arrived young couples to America, when they had problems, they had nobody to lean on. Some sent children to orphanages and paid weekly fees. But if the fees stopped, the children became wards of the state and were placed on the trains." At the reunions, adult children come to collect the history of their parents' lives. Those in the child welfare business come to see if there are lessons to be learned from the country's first documented child placement system. The orphans themselves come to tell the stories that they once kept secret. And they come to spend time with those who have similar histories. What they cannot remember does not matter. The tracks that carried them away from the only homes and families they had known have created a lasting kinship. "We try to make as many (reunions) as we can," Nailling, of Atlanta, Texas, said of himself and his wife. Another train rider, George Meason of Odessa, Texas, told Nailling, "we are all brothers and sisters," Nailling said. The two men have become friends since meeting at a reunion. *** Few left to tell the tale *** Few survivors are left to tell their tales. About 500 are scattered throughout the United States. Nailling is now 77. Morgan is 92, and Strittmatter, of Fort Worth, Texas, is 72. That is why the research center has been recording the riders' stories, told in their own words, in four volumes. "I feel like we're going to lose that firsthand knowledge in the next 20 years," Johnson said. "The youngest survivor I know is 67, but the majority are in their late 70s and mid-80s." Children arrived in rural towns and were selected by new families in two different ways. The Children's Aid Society sent out bulletins to towns and communities it thought would be interested in taking the children. When the train pulled in, 20 to 200 children would file off and line up for inspection. If the heads of a family saw a child they wanted, they signed a contract and took the child home. But not everyone was looking for a child to love. Some wanted free labor, and the children, who were indentured and not adopted, were treated cruelly, Johnson said. "We would stop in towns, and they would examine us, feel our muscles and question us," Nailling said. "It's like you take a cow to a sale barn. Some man grabbed ahold of my cheeks and ran his hand through my mouth. It made you bitter. I had no respect for anybody who came up to me to feel my muscles." *** Brothers are separated *** Nailling, separated from his two brothers, was taken first by a couple near Paris, Texas, who had nine grown children and wanted help around their farm. His brothers were taken by families about 20 or 30 miles away. One day in April, he opened the chicken coop and the birds died in the wet weather. A week later, a car came to take him to another home. He eventually was raised by the Naillings, a strict, religious couple who he said loved him and called him "son." He also managed to maintain contact with his brothers and eventually was reunited with other family members. In some cases, priests and ministers asked their congregations if they would be willing to raise an orphan. The clergy would decide whether a family was suitable for a child. The family sometimes would make requests as well. Blond-haired, blue-eyed little girls were easily placed. Darker-skinned, brown-eyed, older children had a harder time, according to Johnson. Both the children and their new families would receive a number. When the children arrived, the parents simply matched their number with a child's and took him or her home. Each year, agents of the hospital or the society would make unexpected visits to make sure the children were being treated fairly. Despite such efforts, some children were sexually abused and otherwise mistreated, according to experts who have studied the riders. Others tell only of wonderful families who raised them well. "The only thing I know about my mother is that she took me to the Foundling Hospital when I was 18 months old. She was 24. She gave a religious preference, and that was all. There was never a reason why," Strittmatter said. "I have always kind of thought she must have had (a) reason. I thought it was something serious," she said. "What really held me together is that I had her name. I was named after her, and I always thought my mother loved me." *** Some new families kind *** When Strittmatter arrived in Skidmore, the Tchoepe family met the train and took her to the family farm in Orange Grove. The family had 12 children, several of whom already were grown and had left home. The family, she said, encouraged her to retain her original name, Marion Leonard, in case her relatives ever tried to find her. When she turned 18, Strittmatter tried to find her mother. She tried again four years ago. She has never learned more than her name and age. "They were good to me," she said of the Tchoepe family. "They taught me how to love, and they taught me how to work hard and get along with other people. When I had my own family, it wasn't such a chore," said Strittmatter, who has nine children. Other orphan train riders learned to fend for younger siblings at an early age. In 1908, Morgan, then Clara Reed, lived with her parents and brothers in Pillar Point, N.Y. Her parents decided to take a herd of cattle across what they thought was a well-frozen Lake Ontario. The ice broke, and both parents jumped into the icy water trying to save the cattle. Her father died first, of pneumonia. Her mother fell sick, too, and made arrangements for the children to go to the Children's Aid Society when she realized she was dying. After a year at the orphanage, Morgan was told that she and a 5-year-old brother, Jimmy, would be placed on a train for new homes in the West. She was told that the baby, Howard, who was then 3, was too young to travel. Morgan refused to go without her baby brother. The society relented and placed the three children on board together. "The three of us had never been separated, and that worried me more than anything else," said Morgan, of Bedford, Texas. *** Lined up for inspection *** When the train arrived in Belleville, Kan., the children lined up. Howard was taken by a childless couple who owned a farm on the outskirts of town. Jimmy was taken by a man and his family who owned a Belleville hotel. Morgan stood with a big bow in her hair, waiting. Eventually, the Howells, the couple who took Howard, took Clara to help care for the young boy. Three years later, she was adopted by a Presbyterian minister and his wife. The three children grew up in close contact with each other. While the orphans long ago accepted their traumatic childhoods and have gone on to have their own families, many still search for the families they once had. At the reunions each year, survivors trade search methods, discussing what worked and what didn't. They want to know why their parents gave them up, and they want to know if they have brothers and sisters they never knew existed. "I always wondered all my life about my family," Nailling said. He said he remembers his father coming to the train when he and his brothers left for the West. His younger brother said his father cried. And he handed young Nailling a pink envelope with his address that he wanted the boy to mail so he would know where his sons were. Nailling placed the envelope in his coat pocket and fell asleep on the train. When he woke up, the envelope was gone. "My brother and I got down on the floor and looked for it. One of the caretakers came by and asked what we were doing. I told her we were searching for an envelope. She said there would be no need for that where I was going and to get back into my seat. That is the first time I knew I was losing my family," he said. *** Still finding his family *** In 1984, Nailling discovered the existence of a brother who had died. The notice of his death found its way to Nailling and led to the discovery of another brother in Florida. Soon, another brother popped up in New York. There were nine children in all. Soon after, several of the siblings traveled to Atlanta for a reunion. "You get a feeling, and you talk on the telephone," Nailling said about that first meeting. "You are standing in the yard, and here comes the car in the driveway. The chill bumps are all over you. It was a hard feeling when they came up in the yard." These days, Nailling, a retired grocery store manager, makes as many orphan train rider reunions as he can. And he speaks often with his brothers, making sure to never again lose the family from which he was wrenched away. GRAPHIC: Lee Nailing of Atlanta, Texas, remembers the orphan train. Nailing was one of the orphans who was excited about the ride until he found out he would be separated from his brothers. Clara Morgan, 92, holds a picture of herself and her brothers taken when they were orphan children making the train trip west. 2 KRT PHOTO LANGUAGE: ENGLISH LOAD-DATE: May 10, 1994 Copyright 1998 LEXIS=AE-NEXIS=AE, a division of ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Susan M. Ryan Associate Director for Public Services Campus Unit 8418 duPont-Ball Library Stetson University DeLand, FL 32720 (904) 822-7185 (904) 822-7199 (fax) sryan@stetson.edu