HISTORY IS A MYSTERY, ESPECIALLY WHEN IGNORED

One of my favorite books to write was a historical romance called KING’S FANCY. It was my first foray into the world of the mail-order bride. I recently offered it as a free promotion for a few days and one reviewer pointed out that it was an unusual take on the subject. I took that as a compliment. When I prepare to write a new book, I start out with a central idea, usually a problem. In this case , that idea was the desperation; a young woman faced with no way to make a living and no family to fall back upon.

In the early history of the US, there was very little in the way of welfare. The need for aid began to force change and new systems were slowly put into place. Very slowly. There was no organized social welfare program in our country until 1935. Before that, the stress on society was huge and several different systems were created to serve as a relief valve – one of those was the orphan trains.

The orphan trains existed from the mid-1800’s to the early 1900’s. As a result of poverty in homes where the parents engaged in crime, or abused alcohol, or were unfit in some other way, there were children who were abandoned or forced to live on the street. Many were orphaned when they lost their parents in one of the epidemic waves of typhoid, yellow fever, or the flu that swept across our nation. Labeled as ‘street urchins’ or ‘street Arabs’, these orphaned children were considered a problem in cities. Worthy of note was that a good majority of these children were of Irish descent.  

Led by a minister from New York by the name of Charles Loring Brace, The Children’s Aid society was founded in 1853. Although orphanages and asylums did exist, Reverend Brace deemed that these homeless children would benefit from a loving family, an opportunity to work, and ample fresh air. Who wouldn’t? Right? This idea came to fruition in the creation of the Orphan Trains. Unfortunately, not every child found that loving family life at the end of their journey. What wasn’t known or heeded at the time was that Mr. Brace was well known for his anti-Catholic sentiments. In his mind, he wanted to take the unfortunate Catholics off the dirty city streets in order to introduce them to Protestantism.

Several other programs began to feed homeless children onto the Orphan Trains – the New York Foundling Asylum and The New England Home For Little Wanderers in Boston. I find the names for these organizations to be a little on the creepy side, like from an indie horror film. Maybe, it’s just me.

As industrialization brought more people to the cities and railroads were constructed, this influx both exacerbated the problem and seemed to create a solution. The railroads leading west offered an avenue of relocating this excess of problem youth to another location. That sounds cold, doesn’t it? Well…it was.

These associations and others began to ship unwanted and orphaned children in groups on trains out to families or farms on the frontier. Indentured forms were filled out by the people who accepted the child, with indenture lasting until they were at least eighteen years of age. It’s sad to note that the majority of these children who were sent to be taken in by the families out west were never adopted at all, but became indentured servants. Adopted children, by law, were entitled to the same treatment as a birth child, including inheritance. Indentured children, of course, did not receive any of those benefits or protections.

Between the years 1854 to 1929, the orphan trains shipped in excess of 200,000 homeless children, ages two to fourteen from the East Coast to the Midwest and beyond to be adopted or taken in for foster care. Now, we know many ended up little better off than slaves. After the Civil War when slaves were freed, this left a gap in the labor force. In many cases, the riders of the orphan trains filled that gap.

This unfortunate page in our history is not well known. It’s not a comfortable historical truth to run across. When King’s Fancy was free, it garnered one reviewer who questioned that indentured servants even existed in the US at that time. We’re more used to the term ‘indentured’ being used when the colonies were being formed and people were sold into servitude as they migrated to America. But to have children who were born here, American citizens, being placed into indentured servitude is something we’d rather not dwell on. Thus, many are not aware of this blot on our record. 

Perhaps it wasn’t the fault of the nuns and the operators of those Eastern asylums and orphanages to think they were providing a better life for the children. Westward expansion and life on a farm or ranch were being idealized to a great extent by journalists, writers, and those who read their work. Of course, it was also true that the act of shipping these unwanted children out West made them someone else’s problems. Of course, one thing that made this flawed plan work out as well as it did was due to the need for cheap labor in the West. The children were caught between a rock and a hard place – a risky move to an unknown future or the reality of urban poverty.

Imagine with me this uncomfortable and sad scene: A train full of street urchins, orphans, and those deemed to be juvenile delinquents are herded onto a train and sent west. When they reach the first town, they’re pulled off, and put on display on makeshift stages. The townspeople assemble and are encouraged to inspect the children, to examine their teeth, to feel of their muscles. They wore a cloth patch on their shirt which showed their names. Some possessed birth or baptismal certificates, some didn’t. Most did have an indenture paper which would legalize the exchange. Seems very barbaric to me.

Anyone interested could select one or more of these children to take home with them. Those who were not chosen were put back on the train and suffered through the same scenario in town after town. When they were chosen, there was no system in place to check the suitability of those taking the children or the circumstances they were offering. True, some families were really looking for children to adopt, but others just needed extra hands to work the farm or take care of their house.

The main objective of those back East was to find a ‘good home’ for the child, alas – this term was very loosely defined and rarely enforced. The youngest, the infants, were first to be chosen. Boys were wanted for their ability to do manual labor. Last and least wanted were girls – like Fancy. We’d like to think that the majority of these kids found a home where they were loved, but we fear that many walked a much rockier path.

When one studies the accounts of these children who rode the orphan train, you’ll find something even more disconcerting…for many were neither adopted or indentured. Their fate is unknown, they just slipped through the cracks. No one knows if they were abused, or became victims of violence, or even sexual exploitation. This is hard for us to consider, but we must realize that the modern thought about human rights and the innocence of childhood is a fairly new concept. Laws to protect the defenseless were a long time coming – and even now seem to be problematic.

As I mentioned earlier, many of the riders of the orphan trains were Irish children. Fancy, in my book, KING’S FANCY, was of Irish descent with her strawberry red hair and freckles. Today, in our oft confused state of what is racism and what is not, we don’t want to remember that the Irish weren’t always considered to be white - which is mind-boggling to me. Irish folk were sometimes considered to be no more than savages, in part because they were mostly Catholic. The anti-Irish sentiment was rampant in some areas. One newspaper article stated that the orphan trains would not allow redheads – which would have been unfortunate for Fancy. In summation, Catholicism in America at that time wasn’t considered to be a form of Christianity. As a person descended from Louisiana Cajun Catholics, this is hard for me to swallow. This shift in racial identity is a process we don’t often explore.

Injustice, unfortunately, comes in many forms. We tend to push what we don’t know and understand away. In Britain, the Scotch-Irish were pushed to Ireland and in Ireland they were pushed to America. The reformers of welfare shipped the unfortunate children, some of whom were Irish, westward. The Native Americans were pushed even further westward, even to reservations, where their children were forcibly sent to boarding schools where their very culture was forbidden.

All of this together, paints an ugly picture that isn’t pleasant to look at.

Orphan trains and indentured servants were just part of that picture – but a very real part.

Here is an excerpt from KING’S FANCY. In this excerpt Fancy speaks of the orphan trains and it also introduces the hero of the next in my Wild West Series –RENO’S JOURNEY

Fancy was talking too much, she knew she was – but she was nervous, and she didn’t know how to stop. “I’m so glad you came along when you did, Mr. Black. If you hadn’t, I probably would’ve tried to walk to the ranch. I didn’t want to disappoint Mr. Ramsay, not after he’s so kindly agreed to marry me. I know my weaknesses and I can’t afford to neglect so kind an offer, I probably wouldn’t get another one.”

Reno listened, speaking when he got a chance. “You wouldn’t have gotten far on an empty stomach, that’s for sure.”

“Yes, your arrival was very fortuitous.” She clasped her hands in her lap and sighed. “I love it out here, this is so different from anywhere I’ve been before. The countryside is gorgeous. I don’t think I’ll ever tire of looking at these rolling green hills and beautiful limestone cliffs.” Fancy sighed. “I’ve never belonged anywhere or to anyone before. I just can’t wait to get to my new home. I’ll be the best wife any man has ever had.”

“Fortuitous is a fancy word, Miss Fancy,” Reno chuckled. “You must have excelled in school.”

Fancy laughed. “I’m self-taught. Mostly. I worked for a school master for a year and a half. He let me use his library.” She smiled, remembering Mr. Tomlinson with fondness. He’d been easy to please and kind to her when it mattered. “At other times books weren’t so easy to come by.” Her voice lowered to a near whisper. “I remember once getting beaten for borrowing a novel at another place I lived. They accused me of stealing, I spent a few days incarcerated. They were going to…molest me, but I wasn’t pretty enough. They just whipped me and let me go.”

Reno didn’t know how to react. The information she passed along was said so offhandedly. He felt anger build up within him at anyone who would raise a hand at so defenseless a creature. “King has a wall full of books, that’s one thing you two will have in common.”

Fancy hugged herself when a shiver of anticipation made her tremble with excitement. “I look forward to many exciting discussions with my husband.”

Knowing Cap’s feelings about his ex-fiancée, he was still having trouble processing the fact that King had connected with this unusual woman and offered to marry her. “Why were you working in so many different jobs?”

“To survive,” she said simply. “My parents died when I was small, and I was placed in an orphanage. When I turned eight, they placed me on one of the orphan trains. I was taken off in St. Louis and bought by a family with four small children.”

“Bought?”

“Yea, that’s the way the orphan trains worked for most kids. Some were adopted out to families, but most were sold to farms and factories for an indentured servant’s price. If you can’t save up to buy your own freedom, you’re sold to someone else for a profit and the price goes up.” She sighed. “It’s very difficult.”

“How did you escape the system?” He was beginning to see that he wasn’t the only one with problems.

Fancy gave him a satisfied grin. “I was rewarded for a good deed, a deed I would’ve done a thousand times over for nothing.” At his quizzical look, she elaborated. “A house in the neighborhood caught fire and I happened to be passing by. When I heard the little girls screaming, I couldn’t walk away. I raced into the building and brought them out.”

“By yourself?” Reno was astonished.

“Yes, there was no time to wait for the fire brigade. There were other people standing about, but I was younger and faster, I guess.” She rubbed her palms, which still bore the scars. “Their father was very glad to have them safe and sound. He gave me a reward large enough to buy my freedom. There was even a write up in the newspaper.” She blushed profusely. “They took my photograph.” Fancy looked up at Reno. “Did you happen to see the article?”

“No, I didn’t. Sorry.”

She nodded, understanding. “After leaving St. Louis, I traveled to Kansas City. Of course, I worked there also, but the jobs were my choice. For the most part, I was treated fairly,” she told him calmly. “It is very hard for a woman to make it on her own, so I decided to try and find a husband.” She straightened her skirt and sat up primly. “I am almost certain that King saw the write-up about me in the paper. What other reason could there be for him to notice me?”

  Reno didn’t have a clue. This was all a surprise to him. “The sun will be going down soon. I’m sorry you aren’t chaperoned properly, but I think it would be wise to stop for the night. You can sleep in the back of the wagon and I’ll put a bedroll down by the campfire.”

“Camping out!” Fancy was all smiles. “I think this will be a grand adventure.”

Once he stopped, she helped him by gathering wood and settling the horses for the night. “I don’t have any food for us with me, I wasn’t expecting company.”

“No problem.” She patted her stomach. “I’m still stuffed from the stew.”

“Well, I have water.” He held up the canteen. “When you’re thirsty, just say so.”

“These accommodations are first class,” Fancy assured him. “I’ve spent many nights in much worse circumstances.”

Her reassurance didn’t go very far in making Reno feel better. He still felt like he was walking into a trap of some kind. “Well, catch some shut-eye. The sooner we go to sleep, the sooner we can get on the road.”

“I’ll be out like a light in just a few seconds.” Fancy settled down on the blanket he’d left for her, her mind racing with the possibilities that tomorrow held.

 Thank you for reading and considering these difficult truths.      

Love, Sable