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Orphan Trains to Louisiana

Orphan Trains to Louisiana

Posted: 9 Dec 2014 2:14PM GMT
Classification: Query
Surnames: Weiss, Archer, Pons
It is very difficult to obtain personal information about the orphans themselves. Those who came from the New York Foundling Home went to multiple states. The home itself was donated to the Sisters of Charity by Charles Schwab Sr. and was valued at the time at about a half million dollars. It stood on 65 acres. A story from the Daily Picayune of New Orleans, dated December 7, 1910 details the process:

"Chicago, Dec. 16 -- A carload of babies passed through Chicago yesterday. They were from a foundling home in New York, and were billed to Houston and San Antonio, Tex., where each will be adopted by a Southern family.

There were fifty-two babies in the car, and not one was over three years old. (Note: my mother-in-law was on a train to N.O. earlier in 1910 and was not yet two years old).

Their foster parents will meet the babies at Houston and San Antonio. An agent of the New York Foundling Hospital, an institution conducted by the Sisters of Charity of New York City, has traversed the district, finding homes for these abandoned youngsters. Men and woman who agree to adopt the babies have each received a card calling for one baby.

These read: 'This entitles you to Marguerite or Henry or Thomas as the case may be. Six nurses, in charge of Sister Rachel, are looking after the party on its long trip.

"This institution makes a practice of sending about three carloads of babies west each year," said R. J. Carmichael, district passenger agent of the Illinois Central Railroad, who has charge of the party."

While the motivations were good, the outcomes weren't always. I've read that very few of the children who were sent for adoption to New Orleans were returned and that it was a "popular" destination for the Foundling Home to send children.

Re: Orphan Trains to Louisiana

Posted: 9 Dec 2014 10:59PM GMT
Classification: Query
Surnames: Morvant, Ponder
I believe there is a more than good chance that my grandmother was on one of the orphan trains to Louisiana. She was born at New York Foundling Hospital in 1905 and baptized at St Vincent Ferrar Catholic Church. A census taken weeks prior to her birth showed her mother living at St Ann's Maternity, though as a seamstress rather than an inmate.

In Louisiana we know that she was adopted by the Morvant family outside of New Orleans. She was returned by a Morvant man with a different first name than the adoptive father. Now the family that raised my grandmother was the Ponder family of New Orleans. Their youngest daughter was one of two women that were the first social workers hired by the Daughters of Charity. Her father was the head engineer at Charity Hospital in New Orleans.

The family never would provide my grandmother any details of her life prior to living with them. In fact, it was only at the age of 50 that she discovered the prior adoption when applying for a passport. All she was told is that she was born in NYC.

Before she died she asked me to find out anything she could since she had been unsuccessful. She only mentioned this entire topic to me one very brief time. I contacted New York Foundling, the NYC Vital Records office and the Orphan Train Riders Research Center. All I discovered is that she herself had tried to get info from the Foundling - the info was sketchy at best, and the Orphan Riders had no info. I did succeed after much difficulty in getting a copy of her original birth certificate.

To this day I cannot find any one or any group to even confirm that she was on the train. But between her birth situation and that her (final) adoptive family having connections to the New Orleans Daughters of Charity, it seems very probable to me.

Re: Orphan Trains to Louisiana

Posted: 14 Dec 2014 12:11AM GMT
Classification: Query
My wife's mother obtained not only her adoption records but also her birth name when her parents were going through a divorce. It specified the dates of the adoption which coincided with an early 1910 arrival of one of the Orphan Trains in New Orleans. There is no specific connection between the exact date of adoption and the March, 1910 train, but it's hard to dismiss the coincidence of the two.

Re: Orphan Trains to Louisiana

Posted: 14 Dec 2014 12:41AM GMT
Classification: Query
Edited: 14 Dec 2014 12:43AM GMT
After my grandmother's death we found a letter from the Foundling home in reply to a letter she'd sent them. We contacted the home and the only additional info they had was that she had contacted them when she was 15 years old and a letter from her family asked them to not divulge any info to her. The letter sent to her had an incorrect surname clearly intended to throw her off the scent. But at some point she was able to get a copy of her NY state birth certificate and so we had her correct birth name, as well as her birth parents. I think the reason there are no records at the Foundling home or with the orphan train people, is that they were purposely destroyed at the request of her family who were connected to the Daughters/Sisters of Charity. So yes, I think too many of us have nothing to go on but coincidences that are hard to dismiss.

Re: Orphan Trains to Louisiana

Posted: 17 Dec 2014 1:02AM GMT
Classification: Query
The worst part of the secrecy, as we know today, is that the adopted person has no family medical history. Because of the records kept in New Orleans, I know what ancestors five generations died from and can relate that to a physician. Adoptees, especially those from the Orphan Trains, had to begin their own histories and their descendants probably know/knew little about what they were susceptible genetically.

Well, good luck with your search as I know it'll be difficult to impossible to get a high degree of accuracy with the information.
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