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OFF THE BEATEN PA th
‘Baby Train ’ Brought Father to Louisiana
By CHRIS SEGURA ABBEVILLE, La. - When the work is done and evening has settled on Agnes Plantation, John W. Boudreaux takes out a child’s lace cap, dress and undershirt and in a gentle melancholia considers part of his heritage which is lost in obscurity.
“It’s just the most pitiful thing you ever saw,” he once said, describing the clothes which are almost 70 years old.
The bonnet has faded from the immaculate white it once was. The dress also has darkened with age. And the undershirt is blackened along the
edges where it was split down the back to make it easier to fit on a squirming child.
The squirming child was Boudreaux’s father. And when he stepped from a train filled with fellow orphans stopped in New Iberia he was slightly more than two years old, wearing the cap, dress and undershirt, and probably very afraicj.
Hie train was one of several “baby trains’* which carried | waifs from a Catholic orphan- ' age in New York City to foster parents in Louisiana, Texas,
Coot in Sec. 1, Page 14, CoL 3
—Staff Photo by Chris Segura. HOLDING a bonnet Ms father wore, when as an orphan he arrived in Louisiana in 1110, is John W. Boudreaux of Agnes Plantation near'vbbevilie, La. Boudreaux’ father was born Bernard McGinn in New York City. He was one of thousands of orphans distributed throughout several states on “baby trains.” On Boudreaux’ knee i» a dress and behind him on the bench is an undershirt, both of which his father wore that March day <S years ago. ..
‘Baby T iin’Is Start in Search for Heritage
Continued from Page 1
Maryland, Pennsylvania and other states.
The orphans were from the New York Foundling and Orphan Asylum, now called the New York Foundling Hospital. The Sisters of Charity founded the “asylum" in the late 19th Century, and soon infants in need of care overflowed the resources.
Parents were found primarly through Catholic parish priests in several state*, and the practice of sending the children by trains was begun. By the time the practice was discontinued in 1927, thousands of orphans had been placed in good homes.
Adoption was not a requirement. Instead, the children were indentured and the “asylum" made efforts to check on the children’s well-being, reserving the right to reclaim the youngsters if they were mistreated.
There must have been tremendous adjustments . All arrangements had been made by mail. A tag inside the hand-me-down garment Boudreaux now cherishes as an heirloom bore the child’s identification and the name of his foster par-ent.Therfe fflaarty othflror-.r phans and probably much confusion.
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But young Bernard McGinn ' didn’t have this problem. His < foster father was a rather flambouyant former Spanish-American War “Rough Rider" named St. Julien Boudreaux.
He was a businessman with a fabled sense pf humor and kind disposition. He end his first wife had been childless until the little Irish-surnamed child arrived in New Iberia for the last leg of his trip home — for the first time — to Abbeville.
Little Bernard McGinn was quickly adopted by Boudreaux and his wife. He was given the name Bernard McGinn Boudreaux, and he was a favorite of his father, even after other children were born to Boudreaux and hiisepond wife. , B. M. Boudreaux grew up to be a tall, blond, strong man given to adventures almost as flambouyant as his foster father’s. He ran the business he inherited frtyn the elder Bou-
dreaux, and eventually bought land and became a rice farmer.
When he died more than 10 years ago, his sons John W. and Bernard McGinn Boudreaux Jr. — knew little about their father, other than that he had been an orphan who had come to Louisiana on a “baby train” in 1910.
In fact, it was hard to imagine “Mister Ben” was not bom aftd bred a Cajun. He ^wke French fluently. He was a noted member of the society of Vermilion Parish. In short, he fit perfectly.
John Boudreaux, though, needed to know more. He contacted the New York Foundling Hospital and received information he now treasures.
Sister Bernard Marie, of the hospital, said records in New Yore indicate his father had been brought to the orphanage on Feb. 8, 1908, when he was five days old.
Of his receiving the letter, Boudreaux said, “That was the first time I ever knew my grandmother’s name.” He points* to “Sarah McGinn” underlined in the third paragraph.
address Sarah McGinn gave when she surrendered her baby to the orphanage is listed in a city directory of the time to a Luke McGinn whose trade was that of a “molder.” There, the trail stops. Boudreaux folds the baby clothes neatly and stores them securely.
The path into the past, thus far, has been closed. His future, he says, is in Louisiana.