Comment by James E. Carroll on May 16, 2014 at 4:27pm

Robert Noonan is an author who wrote the "Orphan Train Trilogy."  He moved from Chicago to a rural village near me to write.  I met him at a newly-formed Writers' Group organized by a local newspaperman.  He unfortunately was able to attend only the first meeting of the Group, because he was terminally ill at the time and passed away before the second meeting.  I remember him telling us that his writing just flowed and he didn't have to outline or anything.  He commented that his doctor had told him he was ready for Hospice when he came to our meeting.  As sad as I am at his passing, I am glad I got to meet him and chat with him for a bit.  

His books are available on Amazon.com

Comment by Terry Reed on May 19, 2014 at 9:07pm

My grandfather George Reed came to Farley, Iowa on the orphan train from the New York Foundling Hospital and the catholic orphanage in New York City. 

Comment by Joseph Kissane on November 2, 2017 at 10:19pm

The records, such as they are are available on-line for many of the orphan train children but they do not have a lot beyond name and age. The ancestors in our family tree had a unique enough last name and we knew the circumstances of the children being taken so it was not as critical to putting the picture together, but calling something that happened for 75 years an experiment is somewhat an understatement - there were thousands of children dispatched on these trains. There is amusement and research center in Kansas that has limited staff and resources, but is helpful and there are organizations of ancestors of children from the orphan trains that can help.

Comment by Joseph Kissane on April 21, 2018 at 10:34am

Not all of the children were orphans.  Children taken from incompetent parents by the courts - children of hopelessly alcoholic parents, parents whe were deemed unfit, etc. were assigned to the Children's Aid Society and when the numbers exceeded their ability and facilities, they shipped them off to agrarian locales and were hosted by communities where mostly farm families were offered the opportunity to adopt these unfortunate children.  As with any adoption, there were good and bad - and the Children's Aid Society probably did their best to screen applicants - and to keep siblings together where it was seen as appropriate.  The 3 siblings in my wife's family were split up, two stayed near the same town, while the third was sent 300-miles away.  The two who were near each other kept in touch - the third one saw them only a few times, and there was one occasion where they reunited with their sister who was old enough to have hired herself out as a housekeeper and stayed on the East Coast.  It is one of those peculiar things in American history that is not cosmetically positive enough to have its history well documented.

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