Saturday, November 20, 2010
EXCELLENT Video Clip of NY Foundling Home's BABY TRAINS to LA
There is an excellent TV clip about the BABY TRAINS from the NY Foundling home that has recently been added to You Tube. It is a totally accurate, very well done, portrayal. Unfortunately, the address cannot be copy/pasted for whatever reason, but if you are interested in viewing it, go to www.youtube.com and type in Orphan Train Rider Story, and it will be the first choice. It is from the Lousiana Orphan Train Riders Association. ENJOY!
Saturday, October 9, 2010
BALTIMORE BOOK FESTIVAL 2010
On Saturday September 25, 2010 I traveled to the BALTIMORE BOOK FESTIVAL in the Mt. Vernon section of Baltimore for an all day event. The weather was PERFECT - warm and sunny -and the Festival was very well attended. I spent the day sharing the history of the orphan trains with many interesting people from all walks of life! Pictured with me here is a young man named Logan and his mom who purchased all three books. SMILE LOGAN!!!I had the pleasure of meeting some other children's authors and enjoyed spending "down time" talking with them and learning of their journeys to book publication. Anita Reese sat to my right. http://www.anitareese.tatepublishing.net/ Anita has written two books that incorporate the use of sign language in the reading process. I purchased her book, "Learn to Read with Sign Language - Basic Sight Words" for my niece Sara Anne who is an emerging reader. On my left was author K. Michael Crawford http://www.happilyeverart.com/ who is the award winning author of a very unique series of books which combine reading with drawing. She also spent the day encouraging over 500 festival attendees to contribute to one piece of art work in an effort to break the Guinness Book of World Records and by the end of the day, the record was broken!!! Michael, I found out, will also be traveling to Waynesboro VA the weekend of October 16th for the "Book 'Em" event so we will have the opportunity to spend the day together then as well. Check out both of these author's websites for some GREAT CHILDREN'S BOOKS!
By the end of the day I was exhausted but happy with the event, having sold lots of books and made some very good contacts for future speaking engagements. A huge THANK YOU to my friend Stephanie Paloni Chupein who lives in the Fells Point section of Baltimore and graciously put me up for two nights so that I could be nearby for the event. Thank you for your friendship Stephanie, and for your "Bed & Breakfast" type hospitality!
Next up...... WAYNESBORO VIRGINIA'S "BOOK 'EM" EVENT - Buy a Book, Stop a Crook!" http://www.bookemfoundation.org/Waynesboro/index.html. This is a fundraising book event dedicated to increasing literacy rates and by extension, decreasing crime rates. Sponsored by the Central Shenandoah Crime Stoppers and Hosted by the Waynesboro Police Department, this worthwhile event is in its 7th year! Also attending will be my friend and author Melissa Foster http://www.megansway.com/ author of "Megan's Way". If you're anywhere near the Waynesboro area on the 16th, stop by and say hello!
Saturday, September 18, 2010
NATIONAL ORPHAN TRAIN COMPLEX ANNUAL CELEBRATION!
On September 11, 2010 the NATIONAL ORPHAN TRAIN COMPLEX hosted the annual National Orphan Train Reunion at the museum in Concordia Kansas where visitors were treated to an entirely new museum layout designed by curator Muriel Anderson. Among the many new exhibits and informative displays was this two cube exhibit highlighting the early life of Orphan Train Rider Oliver Nordmark (my grandfather). Each cube included two audio recordings that visitors could listen to through the headphones attached to the side of the display cases.
The first recording, and corresponding visuals, told of Oliver's experiences in the Children's Village Orphange in NYC after being removed from his home due to neglect. This included the story of his first night in the orphanage when he cried himself to sleep, fearful of what lay ahead for him, as well as his experience of being sent to the Power House Jail in the Orphanage after being caught breaking a uniform rule by wearing two uniform shirts instead of one on a particularly cold winter morning.
Oliver's second recording told of his feelings and experience of being chosen to ride an Orphan Train after being in the orphanage for one year. He and his younger brother Edward traveled to Bern Kansas where they were placed with a local farmer and his wife.
On the second cube, visitors listened to Oliver's tale of running away from his second placement - the McCammon's Farm - by jumping onto the side of a departing freight train as it pulled out of Esbon, Kansas on July 4, 1913. In search of a life of his own, Oliver traveled on the side of the train for nearly 200 miles to Goodland Kansas where he found work with a local farmer bringing in the wheat harvest.
In the final recording, Oliver tells the museum visitors of his experiences building and living in a sod house on the prairie outside of Goodland Kansas, complete with rats nibbling on his toes at night and rain dripping through the roof of the house for several days after a storm.
In an email I received from Muriel Anderson, she commented, "I've had a really great reception of the new exhibit. People really like to hear the voice of an actual rider."
This year's reunion featured, in addition to the new museum layout and exhibits, a tribute to MARY ELLEN JOHNSON - founder of the Orphan Train Historical Society of America (OTHSA).
For more information on the National Orphan Train Complex and upcoming State Reunions, be sure and visit their website at http://www.orphantraintdepot.com/
Sunday, August 8, 2010
MAYA'S AWARD WINNING DOCUMENTARY
Wow, has it really been a month since I posted on my blog???? I really must do better, but I do have an explanation, I'm happy to say.
First off, please click on the link above to view Maya Berman's AWARD WINNING documentary on the ORPHAN TRAIN MOVEMENT. She did a fantastic job I'm sure you will agree. I am amazed that she is just eleven years old!
Secondly, I am feverishly at work putting together a museum exhibit for the NATIONAL ORPHAN TRAIN COMPLEX in Concordia, Kansas which will feature Oliver Nordmark's audio recordings in four segments: Life in the Children's Village Orphanage in NYC.... Riding the Orphan Train and being chosen from the Opera House stage in Bern, Kansas.... Oliver's decision at age 15 to hop a freight train as it pulled out of town to run away and start a life of his own.... and finally, Life in a Sodhouse on the Kansas prairie.
The museum would like to include this exhibit in time for the yearly National Orphan Train Reunion Celebration which will be held in Concordia the weekend of September 11th. The work is coming along..... I have the audio segments isolated and transferred to separate CDs ..... and I am now working on the documents and artifacts that will complement each segment within the museum display case.
I have also been working on upgrading my display materials for regional Book Festivals in order to attract interested readers to my booth when I attend these events. I have three lined up for the fall, most importantly the Baltimore Book Festival which will be the last weekend in September. I have a brand new, colorful banner that I hope will attract readers attention and am working on some high quality posters as well.
And finally, I have been preparing for my presentation this Thursday at the Shannondell Retirement Community in Valley Forge, PA as well as corresponding with a teacher from the Tidewater area of Virginia who is interested in finding sponsorship for a regional Author Visit to include schools and community organizations - much like my trip to Kansas this past April.
Add to all of that the joys of summer.... vacation getaways, kid's activities, never ending yardwark, home improvement projects ..... well, you get the picture! I promise to do better going forward with more timely posts :)
So......THAT'S MY STORY AND I'M STICKIN' TO IT! As the song goes :)
Monday, July 5, 2010
NATIONAL HISTORY DAY WINNER!
Recently, out of the blue, I received a phone call from a grandmother in Bethesda Maryland, Thalia Funt, who is a native of central Kansas and had read about my book tour visit to Solomon Elementary School in the Solomon Valley Tribune.
Mrs. Funt’s granddaughter, Maya Berman, is an eleven-year-old who is homeschooled, along with her younger sister Shayna. Maya was a participant in this year’s National History Day Competition in Montgomery County Maryland. Her ten minute documentary on the Orphan Train Movement of 1854-1929 won FIRST PLACE in the Jr. Documentary Category. The documentary, which Mrs. Funt sent me a copy of, is extremely well done and accurate – I was quite impressed! No wonder it took FIRST PLACE!
Maya wrote to me and shared that her own great grandmother had possibly ridden an orphan train in the late 1800’s. Born in 1883, the only known information is that she was an orphan, living with an adoptive family in Kansas. Research revealed that there were no orphanages in Kansas at that time so it is very possible that she arrived in Kansas on an Orphan Train; perhaps sent by the Sisters of Charity or the Children’s Aid Society.
Many thanks to Maya, and to her grandmother Thalia, for sharing - not only Maya’s award winning documentary - but also a little of their own family history. It is through the preservation of individual stories that the history of the Orphan Train Movement will survive!
Mrs. Funt’s granddaughter, Maya Berman, is an eleven-year-old who is homeschooled, along with her younger sister Shayna. Maya was a participant in this year’s National History Day Competition in Montgomery County Maryland. Her ten minute documentary on the Orphan Train Movement of 1854-1929 won FIRST PLACE in the Jr. Documentary Category. The documentary, which Mrs. Funt sent me a copy of, is extremely well done and accurate – I was quite impressed! No wonder it took FIRST PLACE!
Maya wrote to me and shared that her own great grandmother had possibly ridden an orphan train in the late 1800’s. Born in 1883, the only known information is that she was an orphan, living with an adoptive family in Kansas. Research revealed that there were no orphanages in Kansas at that time so it is very possible that she arrived in Kansas on an Orphan Train; perhaps sent by the Sisters of Charity or the Children’s Aid Society.
Many thanks to Maya, and to her grandmother Thalia, for sharing - not only Maya’s award winning documentary - but also a little of their own family history. It is through the preservation of individual stories that the history of the Orphan Train Movement will survive!
Saturday, June 26, 2010
RIDING THE BABY TRAINS
After a successful two week book tour to Kansas and taking time to honor the memory of my Uncle Jim, it’s time to get back to the original intent of this Orphan Train History Blog.I am so appreciative of your patience, blog followers, but I am now Back On Track and ready to pick up the story where I left off……way back on March 6th believe it or not!!!
RIDING THE NY FOUNDLING BABY TRAINS
Sister Mary Irene Fitzgibbon of the Sisters of Charity opened the New York Foundling Hospital on October 11, 1869 which was, appropriately, the Feast of the Maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The sisters had intended to take three months to get the hospital ready to shelter the many abandoned infants that previously had been left on church doorsteps, in ash barrels, on trash heaps and other out-of-the-way places. But on their first night in the building, located at 17 East 12th Street, an infant was left on the steps and the Foundling Hospital was officially OPEN. By January 1, 1870, the original date that the sisters had planned to open their doors, 123 babies were already in residence.
By 1876 the Founding home had relocated to larger quarters; first to 3 North Washington Square, and then, in 1873, to 175 East 68th Street. With an unprecedented number of infants and small children coming under their care, the sisters came to realize that additional solutions were necessary to provide homes for so many children.
Following in the steps of Reverend Brace and the Children’s Aid Society, the Sisters of Charity sent their first train west in 1876. The disbursement of the children through the NY Foundling trains, known as Baby Trains or Mercy Trains, was run differently than the Orphan Trains. Since theirs was a Catholic institution, the nuns were especially concerned that the babies be placed in Catholic homes and raised in the Catholic faith. Instead of sending notices to local newspapers, therefore, the sisters sent letters to the priests of the Catholic parishes in the towns along the railroad. These letters expressed the need for families in rural areas to open their homes to one of the many abandoned babies living in the Founding Home. Priests would read the letter to the congregation during Mass and interested families could then complete a form requesting exactly the type of child that they would like. If a family had three sons, for example, and wanted a daughter, they might ask for a “two year old girl with blonde curly hair and green eyes,” or whatever they thought would be a good fit in their family. The requests would then be sent back to the Foundling Home where the sisters would considerately look over each child (there were thousands at any given time) to carefully select a child that would be a perfect match for the waiting family.
Chosen children would then be “tagged”, that is to say, their name and the receiving family’s name would be sewn into the hem of their dress, and a notice would be sent to the family informing them of the date and time to expect the train’s arrival with their new child.
Once the child had been received, the family was required to complete a “Receipt of Child” form which acknowledged receipt of the orphan as well as promising the Sisters of Charity that the child would be raised in the Catholic faith, sent to school, and given all the advantages of a naturally born child.
Interestingly, many of the babies who rode the Baby Trains were actually adopted by the receiving families whereas many of the children who rode the Orphan Trains were not adopted but lived, rather, in a foster care arrangement until they became of age to go out on their own. Why would this be the case? Imagine you have completed your request form for a baby from the NY Foundling Home and your Parish priest has mailed it off to NY for the selection to take place. What do you suppose you would be doing on your farm between that time and the time the child arrived? Getting ready, of course. You would no doubt be sewing clothes, knitting blankets, having your husband build a crib or bed for the child…all sorts of things. You were probably already “bragging” about your new little daughter to neighbors, friends and fellow parishioners. By the time the child arrived on the train, you were surely all ready to welcome her into your home and your heart. She was already yours! Once in your home, you would naturally want to protect this new relationship with legal status since children could be removed by the sending agencies for any number of reasons.
Families taking children from the Children’s Aid Society Orphan Trains, however, were not anticipating and preparing for a specific child. They were, instead, more likely coming into town to see the New York orphans, consider the options, and perhaps bring a child home to help with the labors of farm life. They may have gone into town thinking that they would be bringing home a boy to help work the fields only to find that most of the children that day were girls. A fourteen-year-old girl to help with the housework might end up joining the family instead.
Sister Mary Irene Fitzgibbon of the Sisters of Charity opened the New York Foundling Hospital on October 11, 1869 which was, appropriately, the Feast of the Maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The sisters had intended to take three months to get the hospital ready to shelter the many abandoned infants that previously had been left on church doorsteps, in ash barrels, on trash heaps and other out-of-the-way places. But on their first night in the building, located at 17 East 12th Street, an infant was left on the steps and the Foundling Hospital was officially OPEN. By January 1, 1870, the original date that the sisters had planned to open their doors, 123 babies were already in residence.
By 1876 the Founding home had relocated to larger quarters; first to 3 North Washington Square, and then, in 1873, to 175 East 68th Street. With an unprecedented number of infants and small children coming under their care, the sisters came to realize that additional solutions were necessary to provide homes for so many children.
Following in the steps of Reverend Brace and the Children’s Aid Society, the Sisters of Charity sent their first train west in 1876. The disbursement of the children through the NY Foundling trains, known as Baby Trains or Mercy Trains, was run differently than the Orphan Trains. Since theirs was a Catholic institution, the nuns were especially concerned that the babies be placed in Catholic homes and raised in the Catholic faith. Instead of sending notices to local newspapers, therefore, the sisters sent letters to the priests of the Catholic parishes in the towns along the railroad. These letters expressed the need for families in rural areas to open their homes to one of the many abandoned babies living in the Founding Home. Priests would read the letter to the congregation during Mass and interested families could then complete a form requesting exactly the type of child that they would like. If a family had three sons, for example, and wanted a daughter, they might ask for a “two year old girl with blonde curly hair and green eyes,” or whatever they thought would be a good fit in their family. The requests would then be sent back to the Foundling Home where the sisters would considerately look over each child (there were thousands at any given time) to carefully select a child that would be a perfect match for the waiting family.
Chosen children would then be “tagged”, that is to say, their name and the receiving family’s name would be sewn into the hem of their dress, and a notice would be sent to the family informing them of the date and time to expect the train’s arrival with their new child.
Once the child had been received, the family was required to complete a “Receipt of Child” form which acknowledged receipt of the orphan as well as promising the Sisters of Charity that the child would be raised in the Catholic faith, sent to school, and given all the advantages of a naturally born child.
Interestingly, many of the babies who rode the Baby Trains were actually adopted by the receiving families whereas many of the children who rode the Orphan Trains were not adopted but lived, rather, in a foster care arrangement until they became of age to go out on their own. Why would this be the case? Imagine you have completed your request form for a baby from the NY Foundling Home and your Parish priest has mailed it off to NY for the selection to take place. What do you suppose you would be doing on your farm between that time and the time the child arrived? Getting ready, of course. You would no doubt be sewing clothes, knitting blankets, having your husband build a crib or bed for the child…all sorts of things. You were probably already “bragging” about your new little daughter to neighbors, friends and fellow parishioners. By the time the child arrived on the train, you were surely all ready to welcome her into your home and your heart. She was already yours! Once in your home, you would naturally want to protect this new relationship with legal status since children could be removed by the sending agencies for any number of reasons.
Families taking children from the Children’s Aid Society Orphan Trains, however, were not anticipating and preparing for a specific child. They were, instead, more likely coming into town to see the New York orphans, consider the options, and perhaps bring a child home to help with the labors of farm life. They may have gone into town thinking that they would be bringing home a boy to help work the fields only to find that most of the children that day were girls. A fourteen-year-old girl to help with the housework might end up joining the family instead.
My friend, and fellow author, Renee Wendinger is the daughter of an orphan train rider. Sophia Kaminsky (pictured above at age 4) was relinquished to the NY Foundling Home at 5 ½ months of age and traveled on one of the Baby Trains in June of 1917 to Minnesota when she was just two years old. You can read more about Sophia as well as the orphan trains in Renee’s book, Extra! Extra! The Orphan Trains and Newsboys of New York which is available through her website at http://www.theorphantrain.com/.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
In Memory of James B. Nordmark
Yesterday I received the sad news that my uncle, James Bruce Nordmark passed away on Memorial Day, May 31, 2010. Jim was born the fifth child of Oliver and Estella Nordmark on October 12, 1926. He, along with my father, was the driving force behind my third book, PEANUT BUTTER FOR CUPCAKES: A True Story From the Great Depression. He graciously took the time to sit down with a tape recorder and tell me all the stories of his childhood...the good, the bad, and the very funny!
Jim served his country as a young man of 16, having changed the date on his birth certificate so that he could sign up. Before his 17th birthday, he was on a ship headed to the Mediterranean Sea.
He married Muriel Jones with whom he celebrated 64 years of marriage. Together they raised four children, Steve, Debbie, Joann and Jimmy.
I have so many memories of Uncle Jim.... Vacationing at his home every summer, waterskiing and camping at Pardee's Beach in the Poconos, traveling to Colorado with his family and mine, working with him on my book.....he was without question, my favorite uncle. In fact, my son James is named for him. 
Life is complicated, and time and circumstances can overshadow what truly matters. Jim's life began under difficult conditions and he weathered many hardships and challenges over the course of his 83 years. He would often remark, after telling a particularly hard story, "But... I got through that."
It was part of his outlook on life, I would say. Do what you have to do to get through the tough times. Relish the good times.
Jim Nordmark was a kind man who loved his family and spoke with pride of their accomplishments. I am blessed to have had him in my family and in my life. I think that I can speak for our entire family when I say that I will miss him, and always remember him with a smile. I love you Uncle Jim.
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