Elaine Eadie to present story of the orphan train October 24

by Lissa Blake

Some might call it the worst form of child abuse - making children leave everything they know to be transported like cattle on a train halfway across the United States into an unknown future.
But for more than 250,000 children over 75 years, the orphan train was a ticket to a better life. And many found that life in northeast Iowa.
Elaine Eadie of Waukon is one of the foremost historians on the arrival of two orphan trains in northeast Iowa. This year marks the 100th anniversary of the first orphan train arriving in Decorah in February of 1913 and the second in Waukon in November of 1913.
For Eadie, the quest to learn more about the legendary train is personal, as her father and uncle were two of the orphans on the train to Waukon. “My dad and his brother were two of the few orphans I can say were lucky,” said Elaine Eadie about her father, Gilbert, and her uncle, Walter.

THE HISTORY
The orphan train movement was a welfare program started in the mid-1850s by Rev. Charles Lorring Brace. “He was studying to be a minister and was disturbed by the number of kids he found living in cardboard boxes. There were so many kids turning to crime and prostitution. He decided instead of preaching from the pulpit, he would help these kids,” said Eadie.
Brace established the Children’s Aid Society, which helped start the orphan train movement. Between approximately 1853 and 1929, the trains relocated orphaned, abandoned or homeless children from crowded cities such as New York and Boston to willing foster homes across the country. The late 1920s ended the program with the advent of organized foster care in America.

GILBERT’S JOURNEY
Eadie said her grandfather, John Eadie, an immigrant from Glasgow, Scotland, had married Adelia Kelly in New York. After having six children, Adelia died in 1911 and John in 1913. “Dad was only 10 years old when his dad died,” said Eadie.
Gilbert’s older brother, John, struck out on his own at 15, but their older sister realized they were too young to fend for themselves and saw to it they were placed in Brace’s School for boys in Valhalla, NY. She asked that the boys stay together.
“They were only there for a short time, but Dad always said if he could live his life over he would have loved to stay at that farm. He loved it there,” said Eadie.
Eadie said Gilbert had recounted overhearing an agent from the Children’s Aid Society talking to Pop Wendel, the man who ran the Brace School. Shortly after, he and Walter were placed on a train headed for Pratt, KS.
“They were lucky there was a home already picked out for them. They were able to forgo the humiliations other orphans had to endure, of being paraded on a platform at a theatre or opera house,” said Eadie.
Gilbert and Walter went to live with east coast transplants, Mr. and Mrs. William Wright, in Kansas for about six months and were getting along well there, until the family’s plans changed.
“Mrs. Wright’s parents apparently wanted them to sell the farm and move back to Pennsylvania. They contacted the Children’s Aid Society to let them know they wouldn’t be taking the boys with them,” said Eadie.

A NEW BEGINNING
So in early 1914, the Eadie boys were put back on a train headed for Waukon, where another home was lined up for the boys. “They spent the night at the Grand Hotel. Dad didn’t feel well and had gotten motion sickness from the train, so someone stayed with him while Anna Laura Hill, the agent from the Children’s Aid Society, took Walter to a movie," Eadie said.
The next morning, the Eadie boys were taken by Mr. Coté, who owned the theatre, to the home of Dan and Nettie Kelly, near Rossville.
“‘Uncle’ Dan and ‘Aunt’ Nettie were a bachelor brother and bachelorette sister. It was said Dan was hard of hearing and Nettie had a severe hair lip. He was in his 50s and she in her 40s at the time,” said Eadie.
Gilbert loved his life there, and he and his brother were treated like family by the Kelly siblings. In addition, the Kellys encouraged the boys to stay in contact with their siblings back in New York, which was not always the case after children were relocated.
“Dad and Walter were fortunate orphans. They didn’t have to sever ties with their family," said Eadie.

THE DOWN SIDE
Through her research, however, Eadie found not all the orphans’ stories had happy endings.
“Ninety percent of these kids that came on the train were used as farm hands. After one year, the agent would come back and visit with the child to see how they were being treated. I remember hearing of one case where this couple had a factory and they had almost worked a young girl to death,” said Eadie.
“When they arrived in these towns, they were paraded on stage and ridiculed… put up there like slaves. The men would come up and feel their arms for muscles and check their teeth… not all of them were picked,” said Eadie.

GROWING UP
Walter graduated from Waterville High School in 1926, but Gilbert had a little more trouble with school. “Dad always played hooky and was having difficulty graduating from grade school,” said Eadie.
But in 1918, Gilbert was given an assignment he really enjoyed: to write an essay about how a farmer’s boy could help win the war.
“Dad wrote the winning essay from Allamakee County and got a 10-day, all-expense-paid trip to the Iowa State Fair,” said Eadie.
Forgoing high school to help Uncle Dan on the farm, Gilbert was 25 years old before he went on his first date. By the time he was in his early 30s, he started dating Gladys Sunderman, Eadie’s mother.
“They had a short courtship, and being a Scotch, Dad thought ‘Why waste all this time, driving back and forth to date?’”
The couple dated only briefly before marrying in 1936, and the couple lived at the Kelly farm, caring for Uncle Dan and Aunt Net’s mother until her death. Walter died of multiple sclerosis in 1937.
Being the only “son” left, Gilbert was in a position to inherit Uncle Dan’s modest estate. “Uncle Dan died around 1944 and he had told my dad if he stayed there with him, he could have all he had,” said Eadie. “He said when the relatives found out about Uncle Dan’s will, all hell broke loose.”
When a neighbor told Gilbert the Kelly family relatives were upset with the situation, Gilbert said he would be willing to leave and didn’t want to cause any troubles for Dan’s family. “In the will, Dad was given the farm and the other relatives the cash, which was about $30,000,” said Eadie.

TELLING THE STORY
Eadie said she remembers by the 1960s and 70s, people started contacting her dad about the orphan train. “It was then I realized there was more to this story than dad ever told us,” said Eadie.
Eadie said her dad spoke on the subject of orphan train history locally and around the Midwest. “At one point, I made Dad sit down and write it all out,” said Eadie, adding her father’s life was the subject of one college student’s thesis.
A picture of Gilbert and his brother standing outside Andy Grimsgard’s variety store in Waterville was among 200 pictures of “Street Kids, 1854-1929” put on display in New York.
Looking back, Eadie said she finds the concept of the orphan train amazing, as it helped so many runaways or children from broken homes whose parents either couldn’t afford them or who had passed away. “The bottom line is my dad’s sister saw to it they were taken care of,” said Eadie.

LOCAL CHILDREN
Eadie has a complete list of the children who were aboard the train that arrived in Waukon in November of 1913, and the families from the local area who took them in upon their arrival: Arthur (13) and Helen (10) Kench to the George Thompsons of Jefferson Township: Anna (14) and Lena (9) Travers to George Clark of Forest Milles: Frank Riehl (10) to A.H. Gast of Linton Township: Josephine Riehl (9) to O.B. Kelly of Rossville; Helen Riehl (7) to John Buntrock of French Creek.

HER PROGRAM
Eadie will host an orphan train presentation Thursday, October 24 at 7 p.m. in the Farmers and Merchants Savings Bank Community Room in Waukon. The event is sponsored by the Allamakee County Historical Society and there will be a free-will donation to cover the cost of refreshments.