Between 1854 and 1929, there was a crisis in New York City. The city had become unsustainably overcrowded due to an influx of thousands of immigrants every day. Does this sound familiar?
An estimated 350,000 orphaned, abandoned and homeless children were transported to rural communities across America — including Louisiana — in search of a better life. “There were too many people, nowhere to live, and a severe lack of jobs, which brought a wave of disease and epidemics,” explained Martha Aubert, the Louisiana Orphan Train Museum volunteer. “Sadly, many people arrived in New York entirely destitute, finding it nearly impossible to care of their families. They were sinking into severe poverty with no relief in sight.” At one point, 30,000 children were living on the streets of New York City alone and destitute.
Moved by the desperation of the situation, Charles Loring Brace, a young minister, founded the Children’s Aid Society in 1854. To rescue the ever-growing number of homeless youth, Brace devised a system to send children by train to rural communities across America. Accompanied by a Society agent, the children would be taken in by farming families who could provide for them and in turn have more help planting and harvesting crops.
Over the next 75 years (to 1929), this early foster-care experiment (later known as the “Orphan Trains” or “Mercy Trains”— reshaped hundreds of thousands of young lives.
Brace found an ally in Sister Mary Irene FitzGibbon. Herself an immigrant, who grew up in New York, FitzGibbon founded the New York Foundling Hospital in 1869. It began with a radical concept: a receiving crib where desperate mothers could leave their babies anonymously, no questions asked.
“The first night, a baby was left by the door on a basket,” Aubert said. “The next day, more children were left. Within a month, she has almost 50 children. They were overwhelmed and had to move to a bigger building. This was how the seed was planted.”
Aubert said while FitzGibbon supported Brace’s vision of sending children to foster families, she wanted to do one thing differently – to utilize the network of the Catholic Church. She began a massive letter-writing campaign to priests and bishops across the country, eventually reaching the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Lake Charles. Local priests in Southwest Louisiana answered the call and in 1907, a delegation traveled to New York City to see the operation firsthand.
“If they were going to encourage their parishioners to take these kids, they needed to know everything about it and ensure it was an effort they could stand behind,” said museum volunteer James Duget. “They were deeply impressed by what they saw,” he said. “When they got back and talked to their parishioners, a lot of families who had no children or maybe had one or two and were able to take on more signed up.”
Prospective applicants could request hair and eye color and the child’s sex. In return, they had to promise the children would be raised Catholic to preserve the faith. So in April and May in 1907, three trains arrived in Opelousas with orphaned children. About 60 children were on each train — each wearing a tag and identification number. Their prospective parents held a corresponding number.
They were met both by welcome and sometimes ridiculed. Duget said: “A lot of time they had a hard time becoming part of the culture of the community, particularly in Louisiana.” Many children were Jewish and only spoke English. Many of their foster parents only spoke French.
Aubert said many orphan train riders kept their past a secret due to the social stigma of being an orphan. Others worried that people would assume they came from “bad” backgrounds. For instance, legendary Louisiana Tech football coach Joe Aillet was an orphan train rider. He arrived in Louisiana from New York as a toddler in 1907, and was taken in by a family in St. Landry Parish. Only when he was on his deathbed did Aillet begin telling family members —including his wife, who had not known — that he had been an orphan train rider.
Aubert said each orphan train rider received a visit — either from a nun or an agent — annually. The visits continued until the child reached the age of maturity. In addition, the majority of the children were not adopted, but indentured, Aubert said. That meant they were legally bound to a host family until they turned 18 or 21. Instead of traditional adoption, these children provided unpaid farm or domestic labor in exchange for food, shelter, clothing and basic education.
For Aubert, the history of the orphan trains is deeply personal. In 1903, Aubert’s own grandmother was left at the New York Foundling Hospital when she was just three weeks old. When she was 4, she was placed on an orphan train, bound for a new life in Bayou Black in Terrebonne Parish.
“I see my grandmother’s birth mother as a hero,” Aubert said. “If it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t be here. I’m a product of this act of humanity.” As some orphan train riders grew older, many started to speak out — including Aubert’s grandmother — allowing historians to piece together this complex chapter of history.
The orphan trains stopped in the late 1920s because of stricter state laws, improved child labor protections and better social welfare programs. Many Midwestern farming communities no longer needed outside child labor and could not afford to feed extra mouths during the Great Depression.
Isn’t it interesting how our history is built in large part on the least of these – the youngest among us?
Psalm 127:3-5: “Children are a heritage from the Lord, offspring a reward from him. Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are children born in one’s youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. They will not be put to shame when they contend with their opponents in court.”
Tagged: American history, Christians in culture, farm life, homelessness, pro-life
