JB,
Yes, they were orphans...sort of. Their mother had died and there were three children. My mother in law was the oldest. She told of taking the two little boys with her by train from near Greys Landing, which was their home, to somewhere in Eastern PA. She was about 9, I think, and it ended up that her father couldn't take the kids on the train because they missed the last train for the day. So kids were left at the station with a note pinned to M-in-L's coat saying where and to whom they needed to go. Father left and went home as he had to work (miner) the next day. Kids were put up by social services (having been called by station master, I presume) of some sort and then taken to the station in time for the train. They went to the father's mother. She is the one who put the boys in the orphanage. Perhaps that was the plan all along. I was able to find the boys there in the 1930 census. That's how I knew where they had been taken.
Carol