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STATE SI HE
FROM USA TODAY'S NATIONAL NEWS NETWORK
By Gary Fandel, USA TODAY
NEW FAMILY: Ruth Hickok, 76, shows a picture of herself at 5 years old with her three adopted brothers.
USA’s ‘Orphan Trains’: Rails used for adoption
By Ken Fuson USA TODAY
BUFFALO CENTER, Iowa — Agnes Herlin rode a train from Brooklyn, N.Y., to Forest City, Iowa, when she was 5.
She and a dozen children, their names pinned on their coats, walked single file from the train depot to the Methodist Church where adults looked them over and chose the one they wanted for a son or daughter.
From 1854 to 1929, trains took thousands of orphans and abandoned children from East Coast cities to rural areas in states like Iowa.
Woman tracks trains’ histoiy, stages reunion
Marv Ellen Johnson of Springdale. Ark., never "Knew anyone wno rode an. Orphan Train, but she has spent the past three years trying to document the stories of those who did.
Johnson, 50, a grandmother of seven, is organizing an Oct. 7 reunion of Orphan Train riders in
Tavetteville^ArK. A simifar £V6nt last year attracted 19 riders and 175 relatives.
Johnson learned of Orphan Trains while compiling a countv history book.
“I just simply could not believe that nobody knew about it,” she says.
Now she’s executive director of the Orphan Train Heritage Society of America, which amounts to six file cabinets and a computer in her kitchen.
The trains stopped; the children paraded in a line; and with few exceptions, anybody who wanted a new son or daughter could have one.
Agnes was chosen by an elderly couple. She cried so hard that her new parents locked her in the cellar, where she sat in the dark and cried • some more.
That’s how orphans were treated in 1917.
Today Herlin’s name is Ruth Hickok. She’s 76, lives near Buffalo Center with her husband of 57
years and has reared two --------------------
children. Her memories of the “Orphan Train” and spending her remain as vivid as the homemade pink impress strangers at the church.
To find out more, write:
Orphan Train Heritage Society of America Inc. 4453 S. 48th St. Springdale, AR 72764 Send 45C in stamps to receive a newsletter.
first night in Iowa dress she wore to