WEBVTT - Revisiting the Orphan Train: An American Odyssey 0:00:01.240 --> 0:00:04.680 Hi, it's Moe. We're off through the new year, but 0:00:04.760 --> 0:00:07.360 I wanted to share another one of my favorite stories 0:00:07.360 --> 0:00:10.480 with you before we return with our final episode of 0:00:10.480 --> 0:00:15.000 the season. It's about the largely forgotten social experiment known 0:00:15.160 --> 0:00:19.479 as the Orphan Train Movement. From eighteen fifty four to 0:00:19.600 --> 0:00:23.800 nineteen twenty nine, more than a quarter million abandoned or 0:00:23.960 --> 0:00:28.240 orphaned children were placed on trains, taking them from East 0:00:28.320 --> 0:00:32.239 coast cities to the Midwest and beyond to live with 0:00:32.400 --> 0:00:39.040 new families, the largest mass migration of children in American history. Today, 0:00:39.320 --> 0:00:44.760 two million Americans are descendants of these courageous riders. In 0:00:44.840 --> 0:00:48.959 twenty nineteen, we looked back at their often heartbreaking journeys 0:00:49.440 --> 0:00:53.800 and tracked down the last known survivor. It's a story 0:00:53.840 --> 0:00:56.680 that moves me as much now as it did when 0:00:56.760 --> 0:01:00.680 we first told it. As always, thank you for listening. 0:01:02.800 --> 0:01:03.040 Hi. 0:01:03.160 --> 0:01:07.000 My name is Addie Skilman, and this is Loving Versus Virginia, 0:01:07.200 --> 0:01:10.320 the stepping stone for equality in America. 0:01:11.520 --> 0:01:15.320 Every year, at the National History Day Contest, middle and 0:01:15.440 --> 0:01:18.640 high school kids from across the country gather to compete, 0:01:19.160 --> 0:01:23.520 presenting on a range of historical topics, therefore turning the 0:01:23.520 --> 0:01:24.920 times reward to Victory. 0:01:24.720 --> 0:01:28.640 Rysler appeal taking a stand against prohibition. 0:01:28.360 --> 0:01:31.360 Root sixty sis road possibilities. 0:01:31.600 --> 0:01:34.560 What chaplin, Missouri? 0:01:34.800 --> 0:01:35.600 Alcoholis? 0:01:35.920 --> 0:01:39.560 Let's all so great to get your kids all Rude 0:01:39.680 --> 0:01:40.479 sixty six. 0:01:41.280 --> 0:01:44.479 But the topic that grabbed my attention was one presented 0:01:44.600 --> 0:01:47.760 by a fifteen year old from Minnesota, Claire Isaacson. 0:01:48.280 --> 0:01:52.600 Orphan Train, the compromise that the children on the right trucks. 0:01:52.800 --> 0:01:55.240 I'd never heard of the Orphan Train, but from her 0:01:55.280 --> 0:01:57.360 first line, Claire had me hooked. 0:01:57.920 --> 0:02:04.160 Your parents are not your parents, Your past is not 0:02:04.280 --> 0:02:08.600 your past. Your life begins when you are chosen. 0:02:12.040 --> 0:02:15.960 Your life begins when you were chosen, an apt way 0:02:16.040 --> 0:02:20.280 to describe the Orphan Train, a mostly forgotten nineteenth century 0:02:20.280 --> 0:02:24.200 movement that rescued abandoned children from the crowded streets of 0:02:24.280 --> 0:02:27.919 East Coast cities and delivered them by train to new 0:02:27.960 --> 0:02:33.320 families across the country. In her presentation, Claire channeled real 0:02:33.360 --> 0:02:37.760 life Orphan Train rider Victoria Moe, a child of Irish immigrants, 0:02:38.120 --> 0:02:39.680 as she made the trip west. 0:02:40.160 --> 0:02:43.080 We cruss our fingers and prayed that we get a 0:02:43.120 --> 0:02:48.000 loving home. Many older children are scared and tried to run. 0:02:49.000 --> 0:02:52.760 Our pasts were left behind on that train station. We 0:02:52.760 --> 0:02:55.280 were going to have a totally different life and our 0:02:55.320 --> 0:02:55.960 new homes. 0:03:00.200 --> 0:03:03.600 I spoke to Claire after her performance, and I'm a 0:03:03.639 --> 0:03:07.040 little embarrassed that I'd never even heard of this before. 0:03:07.240 --> 0:03:11.640 Yeah, I know, it's crazy, and that's why I'm thankful 0:03:11.639 --> 0:03:14.519 that I did the topics so I can hopefully make 0:03:14.600 --> 0:03:18.119 more people know about it, because it's really a secret 0:03:18.200 --> 0:03:19.000 and kind of hidden. 0:03:19.400 --> 0:03:21.600 How big was this movement? 0:03:21.960 --> 0:03:26.800 Well, a quarter million children removed west from eighteen fifty 0:03:26.840 --> 0:03:28.280 four to nineteen twenty nine. 0:03:28.560 --> 0:03:32.080 A quarter million people. That's like the population of Cleveland. 0:03:32.120 --> 0:03:36.160 That's a lot of people. As I dug into our 0:03:36.360 --> 0:03:41.160 archives at CBS News, more voices began to surface, voices 0:03:41.200 --> 0:03:44.960 of orphan trained riders from years past, all of them 0:03:45.040 --> 0:03:49.280 children who had been lifted from dire situations and scattered 0:03:49.280 --> 0:03:54.760 across the country for hope of a better life. 0:03:55.080 --> 0:03:59.560 They sent me out west to Colorado Springs. I went 0:03:59.600 --> 0:04:02.040 to Wayne County, Michigan. 0:04:02.360 --> 0:04:04.760 I had never heard of anything like Kansas. 0:04:05.280 --> 0:04:07.840 In this episode, we'll tell you the story of the 0:04:07.960 --> 0:04:12.800 largest mass migration of children in American history, and I'll 0:04:12.800 --> 0:04:16.200 travel to Texas to talk to the last known surviving 0:04:16.480 --> 0:04:19.120 orphan train rider. They took you when you were such 0:04:19.120 --> 0:04:20.360 a little baby of us. 0:04:20.400 --> 0:04:24.600 The Smallest, Small, Smallest one London Home train. 0:04:24.760 --> 0:04:29.280 From CBS Sunday Morning, and Simon and Schuster. I'm Morocca 0:04:29.839 --> 0:04:39.280 and this is mobituaries, This mobid the Orphan Train. May 0:04:39.360 --> 0:04:44.599 thirty first, nineteen twenty nine, death of an American experiment 0:04:51.040 --> 0:04:54.440 extra extra. Read all about it the Boston molasses disaster 0:04:54.560 --> 0:04:59.200 of nineteen nineteen. It's a slow reader. If you happen 0:04:59.279 --> 0:05:02.520 to be outside Penn Station in New York City last June, 0:05:02.960 --> 0:05:05.800 you might have seen a familiar face. What else h 0:05:06.560 --> 0:05:09.159 extract star. I read all about it Warren Harding dead. 0:05:10.000 --> 0:05:12.440 It was the one hundredth anniversary of the New York 0:05:12.520 --> 0:05:15.599 Daily News, and I had joined their street team for 0:05:15.640 --> 0:05:18.599 the day to pass out papers. Look, I love any 0:05:18.640 --> 0:05:22.919 opportunity to shout random historical facts at strangers were extract 0:05:22.920 --> 0:05:25.280 I read all about it, the Sultan, the Swat credit 0:05:25.360 --> 0:05:28.240 to the Yankees, call the bay Rute News you want. 0:05:30.720 --> 0:05:33.039 I love the baby Ruth thing, but I also wanted 0:05:33.040 --> 0:05:34.880 to get a feel for what it was like to 0:05:34.960 --> 0:05:38.400 be a newsye on the streets of New York. You know, newsies, 0:05:38.640 --> 0:05:42.240 they're the plucky dancing paper boys from that disney musically loved. 0:05:49.960 --> 0:05:52.360 But it turns out it wasn't all song and dance. 0:05:53.000 --> 0:05:56.960 Newsies worked long hours on poor wages. Most of them 0:05:57.000 --> 0:06:00.320 were abandoned children, and in the mid eighteen hundred It's 0:06:00.520 --> 0:06:04.440 New York City had a crisis of abandoned children. Enter 0:06:04.720 --> 0:06:06.120 Charles Loring Brace. 0:06:06.640 --> 0:06:10.080 Charles Loring Brace, from a young age to his dying day, 0:06:10.279 --> 0:06:15.120 really tried to be the best he could be for others. 0:06:15.480 --> 0:06:18.719 Say, George is the head curator of the National Orphan 0:06:18.760 --> 0:06:22.720 Train Complex in Concordia, Kansas. And to tell the story 0:06:22.720 --> 0:06:25.200 of the Orphan Train, you have to tell the story 0:06:25.279 --> 0:06:28.599 of Charles Laring Brace, who was born in eighteen twenty 0:06:28.640 --> 0:06:32.200 six into a well to do family in Lichfield's, Connecticut. 0:06:32.560 --> 0:06:34.520 What was he raised to do? 0:06:35.040 --> 0:06:35.960 Yeah? 0:06:36.000 --> 0:06:38.680 Well, his father, who was a teacher, thought that Charles 0:06:38.720 --> 0:06:41.719 would follow in his footsteps, and he thought, okay, Charles 0:06:41.760 --> 0:06:43.719 is going to be a teacher. And then Charles decides 0:06:43.760 --> 0:06:46.080 to be a pastor. But then he realizes that you 0:06:46.120 --> 0:06:48.640 don't have to be a pastor that stands behind a pulpit. 0:06:49.200 --> 0:06:53.040 The patrician Charles was going to become a missionary, an 0:06:53.040 --> 0:06:56.640 idea that greatly concerned his father, because being a pastor, 0:06:56.839 --> 0:06:58.560 you know, it's kind of nice you get invited over 0:06:58.640 --> 0:07:00.680 to dinner, you've got a nice place where you live. 0:07:01.080 --> 0:07:02.960 But I mean, when you're a missionary, it's you're kind 0:07:02.960 --> 0:07:04.679 of rolling up your sleeves and getting out there. 0:07:04.839 --> 0:07:09.159 He truly jumped into the depths that were being ignored. 0:07:10.400 --> 0:07:14.400 In the eighteen fifties, mass immigration from Europe, mostly Irish 0:07:14.440 --> 0:07:19.320 and German Catholics, overwhelmed New York City. Poor sanitation and 0:07:19.440 --> 0:07:24.720 wild pigs roaming the streets spread diseases like cholera and tuberculosis. 0:07:25.400 --> 0:07:30.720 Non Existent labor laws meant unsustainable wages and unsafe working conditions. 0:07:31.240 --> 0:07:34.080 And while the wretched state of affairs touched people of 0:07:34.080 --> 0:07:37.280 all ages, children felt the effects hardest. 0:07:38.240 --> 0:07:41.920 There was in fantaside happening in New York, where these 0:07:42.000 --> 0:07:45.840 kids were actually literally dying in the streets, in the gutters. 0:07:45.880 --> 0:07:49.400 These babies were tossed out of homes. 0:07:49.520 --> 0:07:53.280 Renee Wendinger has written several books about the orphan train movement. 0:07:53.840 --> 0:07:57.040 She has a personal connection to the subject. Her mother's 0:07:57.080 --> 0:08:00.960 Sophia was a rider. Have you ever wondered what would 0:08:01.000 --> 0:08:03.800 have happened to your mother. Had she stayed in New York. 0:08:05.240 --> 0:08:08.080 I don't think in that timeframe she would have survived. 0:08:08.600 --> 0:08:12.960 Charles Loring Brace was determined to help remember the newsiaes. 0:08:13.440 --> 0:08:16.680 He created lodging houses for them, but there were far 0:08:16.720 --> 0:08:19.880 more children in need than there were jobs for newsboys. 0:08:20.200 --> 0:08:22.960 Give me a sense of the scale of the problem. 0:08:23.080 --> 0:08:25.360 At one point they say ten thousand kids are on 0:08:25.400 --> 0:08:27.880 the street. At another turn, it's thirty. 0:08:27.600 --> 0:08:33.240 Thousand, thirty thousand homeless children at a time when New 0:08:33.320 --> 0:08:37.400 York had fewer than six hundred thousand people total. Charles 0:08:37.480 --> 0:08:40.040 Loring Brace saw all this firsthand. 0:08:40.360 --> 0:08:42.440 Is eighteen fifty three. In the February of that year. 0:08:42.480 --> 0:08:47.239 He starts going out into the streets and quickly realizes 0:08:48.840 --> 0:08:52.280 that we're spending more money imprisoning children because you could 0:08:52.320 --> 0:08:55.160 be arrested for being a vagrant child, and he wants 0:08:55.200 --> 0:08:56.120 to help. 0:08:56.400 --> 0:08:56.679 Now. 0:08:56.800 --> 0:09:00.800 Orphanages existed back then, but they were overcrowded, and so 0:09:01.000 --> 0:09:06.000 called poorhouses put children and adults together, a dangerous situation 0:09:06.120 --> 0:09:09.840 for kids. So maybe it was best to get them 0:09:09.880 --> 0:09:11.400 out of New York altogether. 0:09:12.080 --> 0:09:14.400 He really believed in the idea of getting kids out 0:09:14.440 --> 0:09:16.000 of the city and out of. 0:09:16.120 --> 0:09:20.400 Vice, vice seems like the perfect word what he sees 0:09:20.440 --> 0:09:22.520 going on in the cities of these kids. He just 0:09:22.600 --> 0:09:27.160 sees it as kind of a cauldron of sinfulness, basically. 0:09:27.600 --> 0:09:30.240 But he really doesn't see a way for children to 0:09:30.280 --> 0:09:33.360 grow up and not be touched by it, not be 0:09:33.520 --> 0:09:37.640 drawn into it, to live in an orphanage and then 0:09:37.720 --> 0:09:41.040 be let out at eighteen and not fall into a prison. 0:09:41.920 --> 0:09:44.760 So Brace comes up with a plan to move children 0:09:45.000 --> 0:09:48.080 en mass to a place where they'll stand a better chance. 0:09:48.679 --> 0:09:51.959 Put simply, Charles Loving Brace says, we're going to put 0:09:51.960 --> 0:09:52.800 some kids on a train. 0:09:53.160 --> 0:09:53.559 Yeah. 0:09:54.000 --> 0:09:58.000 In eighteen fifty three, Brace founds the Children's Aid Society 0:09:58.320 --> 0:10:02.120 to help carry out his grand play. First, he needs 0:10:02.200 --> 0:10:05.320 to find people willing to take in abandoned children. 0:10:05.880 --> 0:10:10.320 He basically selects a community where he knows someone. They're 0:10:10.320 --> 0:10:13.559 going to go through that church and require that people 0:10:13.559 --> 0:10:17.280 who apply for them bring two references from their pastor 0:10:17.360 --> 0:10:20.840 and from their courthouse, and they're going to place them 0:10:20.840 --> 0:10:23.960 out under the guardianship of the Children's Aid Society. 0:10:24.400 --> 0:10:26.480 Why is he confident that they're even going to be 0:10:26.520 --> 0:10:27.480 placed I. 0:10:27.440 --> 0:10:30.040 Think he truly believed that people weren't going to come 0:10:30.080 --> 0:10:32.640 to New York and take kids out of orphanages. But 0:10:32.679 --> 0:10:36.560 if he brought them to them, put them in their face, 0:10:37.320 --> 0:10:39.959 there was no way they could say no. And so 0:10:40.000 --> 0:10:40.920 he took a chance. 0:10:41.600 --> 0:10:44.520 Brace makes a deal with a pastor he knows in 0:10:44.559 --> 0:10:49.080 the small town of Dowagiac, Michigan, and the Children's Aid 0:10:49.160 --> 0:10:53.080 Society begins to gather the forty five children who will 0:10:53.120 --> 0:10:55.920 be the passengers on the first orphan train. 0:10:56.440 --> 0:10:59.800 The majority come from the New York Juvenile Asylum, and 0:11:00.040 --> 0:11:03.960 technically that first train we now know by historical records, 0:11:04.600 --> 0:11:08.079 is paid for in half by children they had studied 0:11:08.080 --> 0:11:09.040 your jubil asylum. 0:11:09.200 --> 0:11:13.040 Were any of the kids coerced, pressured or is this 0:11:13.120 --> 0:11:14.800 something that they all wanted? 0:11:15.000 --> 0:11:18.480 It's seemingly like they wanted it, But of course what's 0:11:18.520 --> 0:11:19.959 the alternative. 0:11:21.559 --> 0:11:21.800 Now? 0:11:22.080 --> 0:11:26.079 Orphan train is a slight misnomer. It takes multiple trains 0:11:26.240 --> 0:11:29.040 and boats to get from New York City to Michigan. 0:11:29.600 --> 0:11:32.320 For many of these children, it's their first time ever 0:11:32.400 --> 0:11:33.560 leaving New York City. 0:11:34.040 --> 0:11:36.240 How scary that must have been on the choppy water 0:11:36.920 --> 0:11:40.880 and the cliffs and how many trees there are. 0:11:41.360 --> 0:11:42.839 For these kids, it must have been like going to 0:11:42.880 --> 0:11:46.520 another planet. Oh, absolutely, a memory of This kind of 0:11:46.600 --> 0:11:50.160 crossing even made it into Claire's Orphan Train performance. 0:11:50.720 --> 0:11:54.719 I remember crossing the Hudson River. Oh the wonder that 0:11:54.920 --> 0:11:58.720 filled our eyes. Oh we had ever seen sorrow and pain? 0:11:59.400 --> 0:12:01.400 What's the world is supposed for us? 0:12:03.600 --> 0:12:07.640 The children arrive into Watchiack in late September eighteen fifty four, 0:12:08.160 --> 0:12:11.200 and no one, not the children, not their caretaker, not 0:12:11.280 --> 0:12:14.880 the townspeople, really knows what to expect. So they get 0:12:14.880 --> 0:12:16.960 off the train into Watchiack, and then what happens. 0:12:17.040 --> 0:12:19.560 The kids are so excited. They're finally in Michigan, their 0:12:19.559 --> 0:12:21.880 final destination, and they take off. 0:12:23.240 --> 0:12:27.240 That's right, they run in all directions. Look, they're kids, 0:12:27.280 --> 0:12:29.360 they've been cooped up on a train for days. Their 0:12:29.400 --> 0:12:32.080 caretaker can't keep up. He just goes to wait for 0:12:32.120 --> 0:12:32.920 them at the hotel. 0:12:33.160 --> 0:12:36.640 Finally the kids start rolling in and they have stolen 0:12:37.520 --> 0:12:41.760 everything green apples and pumpkins and acorns, and have shoved 0:12:42.040 --> 0:12:45.720 grass and leaves up their shirts, up their shirt sleeves, 0:12:45.760 --> 0:12:49.400 in their hats, down their pants, in their pockets because 0:12:49.440 --> 0:12:53.600 they're so excited. They've never seen everything where it grows. 0:12:54.360 --> 0:12:56.680 And I'm curious, do they know that you're not supposed 0:12:56.720 --> 0:13:00.640 to steal. Possibly not, And I'm just I'm trying to 0:13:00.679 --> 0:13:04.040 imagine what the people in the town are thinking. 0:13:04.640 --> 0:13:05.880 I bet they're alarmed. 0:13:07.520 --> 0:13:11.720 They probably are alarmed. The people of Dowagiac, after all, 0:13:11.880 --> 0:13:14.720 are scheduled to meet the orphan train riders that day 0:13:15.040 --> 0:13:19.600 at church. You can imagine that already they're regretting welcoming 0:13:19.640 --> 0:13:23.120 the orphans to town. But when they get to church, 0:13:23.559 --> 0:13:25.000 they're greeted with a surprise. 0:13:27.000 --> 0:13:28.840 The first thing that they really hear from the kids 0:13:28.920 --> 0:13:34.880 are Sunday hymns, and they are singing comy centers, poor 0:13:34.920 --> 0:13:41.000 and needy. 0:13:42.040 --> 0:13:43.960 The kids went over the town. 0:13:44.480 --> 0:13:45.840 They're placed within a week. 0:13:46.040 --> 0:13:48.760 All of them, so this first ride had to be 0:13:48.800 --> 0:13:49.920 considered a success. 0:13:50.200 --> 0:13:50.880 Absolutely. 0:13:51.559 --> 0:13:55.320 Two months later, a second train leaves New York and 0:13:55.360 --> 0:14:01.600 the orphan train movement begins in earnest and now a 0:14:01.679 --> 0:14:07.480 pop quiz because I love pop quizzz. It's easy to overlook, 0:14:07.760 --> 0:14:11.839 but so much of America's history, innovation, arts, and entertainment 0:14:12.080 --> 0:14:16.079 politics has been driven by individuals who grew up adopted 0:14:16.320 --> 0:14:19.080 or in foster families. I'm going to give you some 0:14:19.240 --> 0:14:23.320 clues and you have to guess which famous orphan I'm describing. 0:14:24.000 --> 0:14:27.280 If you get two out of three, you win. There 0:14:27.320 --> 0:14:31.880 are no prizes. Our first clue. Before this, former president, 0:14:32.040 --> 0:14:35.600 Stanford graduate and self made millionaire was roasted in the 0:14:35.640 --> 0:14:39.520 Broadway musical Annie for his role presiding over the Great Depression. 0:14:39.920 --> 0:14:43.600 He was raised by distant relatives in Oregon after losing 0:14:43.640 --> 0:14:56.080 both of his parents to pneumonia. It's Herbert Hoover fun fact. 0:14:56.240 --> 0:15:01.400 One of his nicknames was the Hermit, author of Palo Alto. Next, 0:15:01.600 --> 0:15:05.480 this fast food mogul, whose grandma's advice not to cut 0:15:05.520 --> 0:15:09.800 corners inspired his decision to make his iconic burgers square 0:15:09.920 --> 0:15:13.400 instead of round, was adopted as a baby and used 0:15:13.400 --> 0:15:17.160 his wealth and influence to help others with childhoods like his, 0:15:17.760 --> 0:15:22.080 creating a foundation that still supports foster children around the country. 0:15:24.200 --> 0:15:28.400 I'm Dave Thomas. I started Wendy's with one restaurant. It's 0:15:28.560 --> 0:15:32.600 Dave Thomas. Fun fact. Before he created Wendy's, he was 0:15:32.640 --> 0:15:36.000 the mastermind behind the fried Chicken bucket that put KFC 0:15:36.120 --> 0:15:41.160 on the map. Finally, this adopted child would become famous 0:15:41.200 --> 0:15:44.000 at the ripe old age of ten, playing the lead 0:15:44.080 --> 0:15:46.720 role in a series about a family living on the 0:15:46.760 --> 0:15:52.840 prairie in Minnesota. In the eighteen seventies, I decided something. 0:15:53.520 --> 0:15:56.720 What's that happening home is the nicest word there is. 0:15:57.240 --> 0:16:01.160 It's Melissa Gilbert. Her show Lit on the Prairie would 0:16:01.200 --> 0:16:05.480 have storylines revolving around orphans throughout its run, including one 0:16:05.520 --> 0:16:08.480 played by friend of the podcast, Chason Bateman. 0:16:09.520 --> 0:16:11.840 And we hope you meant what you said about how 0:16:11.920 --> 0:16:15.720 you want us to stay, because that's what we want. 0:16:15.520 --> 0:16:20.280 To Speaking of little houses and prairies, let's get back 0:16:20.320 --> 0:16:25.640 on that orphan train. As the Children's Aid Society grew, 0:16:25.840 --> 0:16:29.480 it sent hundreds, then thousands of children all across the country. 0:16:30.080 --> 0:16:33.000 Now almost none of the riders are alive today. But 0:16:33.160 --> 0:16:36.880 back in nineteen seventy nine, my CBS Sunday Morning colleague 0:16:37.000 --> 0:16:41.560 the Great Martha Teichner interviewed sisters Anna and Margaret Fuchs. 0:16:42.160 --> 0:16:45.560 They and their third sister, Helen, rode the orphan train 0:16:45.760 --> 0:16:49.440 when they were just ten, nine and seven years old. 0:16:49.640 --> 0:16:53.320 They were orphaned after losing both their parents to tuberculosis. 0:16:54.120 --> 0:16:56.880 Margaret remembered seeing their mother's burial. 0:16:57.360 --> 0:17:00.120 The thing that really got to me was seen in 0:17:00.200 --> 0:17:03.880 that coffin being lowered, and I can remember trying to 0:17:03.960 --> 0:17:07.360 jump into that grade because that was my mother down there. 0:17:07.520 --> 0:17:09.840 When the children were put on a train in nineteen 0:17:09.880 --> 0:17:12.639 twenty four, they didn't even know where they were headed. 0:17:12.800 --> 0:17:15.720 As Anna remembered, I had. 0:17:15.680 --> 0:17:20.119 Very strong ideas that I was going to California. I 0:17:20.160 --> 0:17:23.400 didn't know there was any other stake besides New York 0:17:23.440 --> 0:17:25.720 and California, as far as I was concerned. 0:17:26.000 --> 0:17:30.720 Margaret described their arrival in the tiny town of McPherson, Kansas. 0:17:30.840 --> 0:17:33.960 First thing I did was to look around. How come 0:17:33.960 --> 0:17:35.720 they're letting us out in the middle of nowhere. I 0:17:35.720 --> 0:17:38.520 couldn't see any buildings. I was looking for skyscrapers. 0:17:38.880 --> 0:17:42.560 Whenever orphans sent by the Society arrived at their destination, 0:17:42.840 --> 0:17:45.639 they were lined up on a train platform or on 0:17:45.720 --> 0:17:48.440 the stage of a theater so that families could walk 0:17:48.480 --> 0:17:51.680 down the line and pick out their preferred kid. As 0:17:51.720 --> 0:17:56.199 author Renee Wendinger explains, this process actually gave rise to 0:17:56.240 --> 0:17:57.720 a familiar turn of phrase. 0:17:57.960 --> 0:17:59.960 Some of the children would have stood on a little 0:18:00.080 --> 0:18:03.560 box called the soap box, and that's how the term 0:18:03.640 --> 0:18:07.120 put up for adoption became known as we know it today. 0:18:07.480 --> 0:18:12.000 If it sounds impersonal, well that's an understatement. Here's how 0:18:12.040 --> 0:18:15.840 fifteen year old Claire Isaacson described it in her National 0:18:15.960 --> 0:18:17.320 History Day performance. 0:18:17.760 --> 0:18:22.159 Ladies were usually chosen first, then the tougher, stronger looking voice. 0:18:22.960 --> 0:18:26.480 US girls were usually chosen vast. We watched people come 0:18:26.920 --> 0:18:30.520 and go and inspect of the children. We saw them 0:18:30.560 --> 0:18:33.600 looking at their teeth and even having some boys to 0:18:33.720 --> 0:18:34.280 push us. 0:18:35.200 --> 0:18:38.560 Martha Teichner asked Anna Fuchs about her experience. 0:18:38.760 --> 0:18:42.040 Did you ever feel any outrage or any any anger 0:18:42.080 --> 0:18:43.800 at the fact that you were being kind of lined 0:18:43.880 --> 0:18:46.840 up there and say, okay, I got a kid. 0:18:47.760 --> 0:18:51.240 No, I don't think so. I think it's a matter 0:18:51.520 --> 0:18:55.320 of you sort of blame yourself for having lost your folks. 0:18:55.480 --> 0:18:58.720 The sisters were all selected, but by different families. 0:18:59.119 --> 0:19:02.480 How big thought was that when you were standing there 0:19:02.640 --> 0:19:05.760 the day that you were both selected by families, seeing 0:19:05.800 --> 0:19:09.280 each other and seeing goodbyes and wondering what's going to happen? 0:19:10.880 --> 0:19:12.439 I think it was sort of the case that there 0:19:12.480 --> 0:19:16.480 was so much confusion and all that we didn't really 0:19:16.520 --> 0:19:19.000 have that much chance to think about it, did we. 0:19:19.359 --> 0:19:23.400 I don't think the thought entered my mind at all 0:19:23.600 --> 0:19:28.639 until I got there and sat on that step ladder 0:19:28.640 --> 0:19:32.119 in the kitchen, and then it finally hit me. You 0:19:32.240 --> 0:19:34.720 are alone that was when you started, and that's when 0:19:34.760 --> 0:19:35.639 I start in. 0:19:38.200 --> 0:19:42.360 Sibling separation was an added trauma thousands of orphan writers 0:19:42.480 --> 0:19:43.800 suffered over the years. 0:19:44.000 --> 0:19:48.520 Were you scared, Yes, I think we just wanted to 0:19:48.520 --> 0:19:50.120 be sure that we were going to be close enough 0:19:50.160 --> 0:19:54.120 together so that we get to wouldn't lose each other. 0:19:55.080 --> 0:19:56.280 Why was that so important? 0:19:56.320 --> 0:20:00.600 What was it's We were family and that was all 0:20:00.600 --> 0:20:01.639 the family there was. 0:20:03.720 --> 0:20:06.600 Even though Anna and Margaret were both taken in by 0:20:06.640 --> 0:20:10.680 families in the same town, their lives took very different turns. 0:20:11.240 --> 0:20:15.080 Anna became extremely close to her new mother, Jenny Bankston. 0:20:15.560 --> 0:20:19.000 She was a person I could trust when I first 0:20:19.119 --> 0:20:21.440 came here. When I came out here, that was one 0:20:21.480 --> 0:20:26.119 thing I did not trust anyone. I had lost faith 0:20:26.160 --> 0:20:30.679 in people. I really feel like I've had two mothers. 0:20:30.960 --> 0:20:34.520 Margaret, meanwhile, was taken in by the Runian family, who 0:20:34.600 --> 0:20:38.200 ran a local boarding house. They enlisted Margaret to help 0:20:38.240 --> 0:20:41.760 with cleaning and cooking for guests. It was a pretty cold, 0:20:41.880 --> 0:20:43.359 business like relationship. 0:20:43.680 --> 0:20:45.199 I always had the feeling that I was there in 0:20:45.240 --> 0:20:45.960 place of a maid. 0:20:46.880 --> 0:20:50.240 Now these weren't formal adoptions, at least not at first, 0:20:50.600 --> 0:20:54.560 but the family's writers ended up with were bound by contract. 0:20:55.160 --> 0:20:57.720 Parents had to make sure the children went to school 0:20:57.800 --> 0:21:01.639 and church. They were expectationsations for the kids as well. 0:21:02.080 --> 0:21:04.320 Yes, the child had to you know, be a child 0:21:04.680 --> 0:21:07.680 and listen to those parents and help out around the house, 0:21:07.720 --> 0:21:10.760 and a household at that moment operated like a little business, 0:21:10.960 --> 0:21:13.120 whether you were the birth child, or the adopted child, 0:21:13.240 --> 0:21:14.119 or the foster child. 0:21:14.640 --> 0:21:16.399 Basically, what you're saying is being a kid in the 0:21:16.440 --> 0:21:21.479 nineteenth century wasn't very fun. No, no, absolutely not. But 0:21:21.560 --> 0:21:25.240 that didn't make it any easier for orphaned children hoping 0:21:25.280 --> 0:21:28.879 to find a family. Arriving to one like Margaret's was hard. 0:21:29.320 --> 0:21:31.520 I honestly don't remember whether I call them mom and 0:21:31.600 --> 0:21:33.359 dad or whether I call them mister ms Venion. 0:21:33.600 --> 0:21:36.040 What does that tell you about your experience. 0:21:36.160 --> 0:21:42.080 Well, just that there wasn't that kind of love there, well, 0:21:42.359 --> 0:21:43.440 affection of any kind. 0:21:43.760 --> 0:21:45.480 Does it hurt you that you never had that? 0:21:45.600 --> 0:21:45.960 Does it? 0:21:46.560 --> 0:21:46.720 Oh? 0:21:46.800 --> 0:21:52.800 Yes, yes, particularly when I knew the kind of a 0:21:52.960 --> 0:21:55.720 home that Anna was in, where she was getting that 0:21:55.880 --> 0:21:58.160 kind of affection and all. 0:21:59.640 --> 0:22:03.960 Mart situation wasn't rare, but spurred by the Children's Aid 0:22:04.080 --> 0:22:08.800 Society's success, other organizations began to follow suit, and in 0:22:08.880 --> 0:22:17.600 eighteen sixty nine, the second largest orphan train institution began earlier. 0:22:17.640 --> 0:22:20.960 I quizzed you on some of America's most prominent real 0:22:21.000 --> 0:22:24.240 life orphans, but they're not nearly as famous as some 0:22:24.440 --> 0:22:28.600 fictional orphans. Remember that Herbert Hoover song from about ten 0:22:28.640 --> 0:22:32.320 minutes ago, Well, it's from a musical centered around an orphan. 0:22:32.640 --> 0:22:34.639 Why any kid would want to be an orphan is 0:22:34.680 --> 0:22:35.159 beyond me. 0:22:36.320 --> 0:22:45.880 Not little orphan Annie was a star, first of comic strips, 0:22:46.040 --> 0:22:49.520 then of the Broadway stage. In my opinion, the nineteen 0:22:49.560 --> 0:22:52.840 eighty two movie is only worth mentioning for Carol Burnett's 0:22:52.840 --> 0:22:53.480 Miss Hannigan. 0:22:53.680 --> 0:22:57.119 And if this floor don't shine, I could turn with 0:22:57.160 --> 0:23:01.199 the pressure building or becks. 0:23:01.920 --> 0:23:05.000 Unders stamp yes Miss Again. 0:23:05.960 --> 0:23:09.159 On television, the nineteen eighties, as It Happens, were a 0:23:09.240 --> 0:23:13.399 boom time for orphan centered sitcoms, starting with Arnold and 0:23:13.440 --> 0:23:15.640 Willis on Different Strokes. 0:23:15.320 --> 0:23:16.840 Don't get too used at his place? 0:23:17.160 --> 0:23:18.280 Who'ld you talk about? Willis? 0:23:19.400 --> 0:23:21.080 And there was Punky Brewster. 0:23:21.400 --> 0:23:22.800 What doesn't anyone want me? 0:23:23.440 --> 0:23:27.320 What's wrong with me? Nothing's wrong with you? 0:23:27.320 --> 0:23:28.119 You don't want me? 0:23:28.280 --> 0:23:30.240 Neither did my mom, That's. 0:23:30.040 --> 0:23:30.760 Why she did? 0:23:30.880 --> 0:23:30.960 She? 0:23:31.680 --> 0:23:33.760 And who could forget Webster. 0:23:34.640 --> 0:23:36.640 I'm r getting used to you guys. 0:23:38.680 --> 0:23:42.240 And you know what, chance, we're getting kind of used 0:23:42.240 --> 0:23:43.040 to you too. 0:23:44.119 --> 0:23:47.400