Orphan Trains - Stephen O'Connor

 Sub-title: The story of Charles Loring Brace and the children he saved and failed

This is a totally different perspective on the orphan trains of the late 1800's from the novel I read earlier this month.  As the sub-title indicates, it is primarily the story of the life of Charles Loring Brace, who founded the Children's Aid Society (CAS) and ran it until his death.  He initiated the idea of shipping children West to be adopted into a better life than what he felt they were living in New York City.  It's a complicated story of trying to effect change with some success and great failures.  The book is a detailed portrait of how Brace came to be an advocate for children and how his beliefs and attitudes shaped the mission of the CAS.  The author seemed to squeeze every piece of information he found on Brace and the CAS organization, leading to an exhaustively detailed account.  It would have been a better story if he'd focused on the milestones in Brace's life.  

The book is a great reference for those interested in the orphan train evolution and its eventual demise.  The last chapter describes how it was the instigation for the child welfare and foster care systems that came about later in the 1900's and are with us today.  I've identified the biological parents of a couple of orphan train riders for their descendants and this book contributes to my understanding of the placements and its effects on the children. 

Published:  2001  Read: September 2024  Genre: History

Immediate Family - Ashley Nelson Levy

This was a tender, thoughtful book of a sister writing a speech to her adopted brother for his wedding. I enjoyed it as it was the first time I had read about adoptees from the adopting family's perspective and especially from that of their natural born siblings.  I don't recall the speaker revealing her name...she addresses her brother, Danny, in a dreamy, reflective way.  He came into her life when she was about nine years old, adopted from Thailand as a three year old.  We learn of his struggles being adopted and different in the American white family he joins.

There were long passages where she reflects on how adoptees and orphans are portrayed in literature and the rescuing role given to them: Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights, Mowgli in The Jungle Book, Batman and Robin, Tarzan. A good read that I would recommend.

Quotes:

"...because change is always tethered to some kind of departure, some send-off to a life you knew"

...how can silence ever be the better, more loving alternative?"

"Love isn't bound up in food...love is primary, attachment is primary, we're not conditioned to love merely because someone feeds us.  We love certain people and we need them to love us back."

Published:  2021  Read January 2022  Genre: Fiction 

Before We Were Yours - Lisa Wingate

This is the fictionalized story of children taken from the parents and put up for adoption in the infamous Tennessee Children's Home Society.  A woman named Georgia Tann trafficked children taken from their parents in questionable circumstances for over 30 years. 

The book uses a writing technique I don't like of going back and forth chapter by chapter between the past early life of the children and the present day, really annoying.  The author could have done a more scholarly work and used real stories of the children affected. 

Published: 2017  Read: December 2018  Genre: Historical fiction