The Orphan Train

 Before I start the cruise part of the blog, I thought I would add a little information about our South Louisiana adventures. Last week, we took a trip through some small towns in south central Louisiana. Some of the towns we went through were Cecilia, Arnoldville, Leonville, Sunset, Opelousas, Washington, Ville Platte, Mamou, and Eunice. We had a couple of interesting adventures in Opelousas and Eunice.

In Opelousas, we stopped at the Louisiana Orphan Train Museum, a museum about orphans and the Orphan Train Movement. The museum is housed inside a restored train depot. Now if you're like me, you've probably never heard about the Orphan Train Movement. At the museum, we learned some really interesting history.

Here's how the story goes: a lady named Catherine Fitzgibbon contracted cholera and was so sick that she lay in a coma on her death bed. During the coma, she had a vision of children, and promised God that if he spared her from the illness, she would devote the rest of her life to helping children. 

Catherine had a miraculous recovery and remained true to her promise to God. She became a nun, Sr. Mary Irene Fitzgibbon, known as Sr. Irene, and joined the Sisters of Charity. She saw many homeless children on the streets of New York, and convinced her Mother Superior to open an orphanage. With only $5 and the help of some wealthy women, she opened an orphanage in the Greenwich Village section of New York.

Soon people became aware of the orphanage, and many parents who couldn't afford to feed or care for their children began leaving them on the steps of the orphanage, usually with notes that asked the sisters to care for their children. The notes told of how heartbroken they were to leave their child, but recognized that they had no choice if they wanted a chance for their child to live.   

Soon there were so many children that the orphanage could not properly care for them all. Sr. Irene wrote letters to priests around the country asking if they had families in their parishes that could adopt or foster these children. In those days, children worked on the family farm, and part of the appeal of adopting an orphan was to have more labor for the farm. 

Beginning in 1907, the first of three trains arrived in Opelousas with orphans from New York. The term Orphan Train Riders was used to describe the children. The children were not sent alone, but traveling with them were two sisters from the New York orphanage, an agent, and two nurses. The priest at a local parish in Opelousas was instrumental in bringing the orphan trains to this town. One of the requirements for a family to adopt an orphan was that the child be raised in the Catholic faith.

In the local parish, the priest invited any parishioners who were interested in adopting one or more of the orphans to "apply", and they could even request a certain sex, age, and even hair and eye color, so that the child would closely resemble the rest of the family. The children in the New York orphanage were then chosen to meet these requests and were placed on the train. Each one wore an identification number and each prospective parent held a corresponding number that matched the one of their assigned child.

As the Orphan Train arrived, there was much curiosity and many local people from the town went to the train depot to witness this amazing event. As the children got off the train, they were overwhelmed, not just with all the townsfolk that had shown up to greet them, but also with the horses, chickens, and dogs, as they had never seen these animals before. 

Many of the children were never formally adopted, but were raised in the homes as part of the family. To assure that they were being treated properly, the nuns or an agent returned for annual visits to each of the orphan homes to check on them. 

Over time, the children became known as the Orphan Train Riders. When they first arrived, they were ostracized as orphans. Later on, some of them became leaders of the community, with one of them even becoming the mayor of Opelousas. 

There were many Orphan Trains that went out to cities all across the country. There are only 2 museums in the country dedicated to the Orphan Train Riders: this one in Opelousas and another one in Concordia, Kansas. The lady at the Orphan Train Museum who told us the story had a personal interest: her grandmother had been an Orphan Train Rider. Another man there had an aunt who had been an Orphan Train Rider. There were no employees working at the museum; they were all volunteers. Most of them (probably all) had some personal story or relative who had been a rider on the Orphan Train. We were told that the last Orphan Train Rider died last week - a lady who was over 100 years old. We heard about this last of the Orphan Train Riders from many people in the community in some of the other places we went. They all spoke of her passing with much sadness. Obviously, the story of the Orphan Train Riders has found a place in the hearts of the people of Opelousas. 

Unrelated to the Orphan Train story, in the corner of the museum was a display dedicated to Pope Leo XIV. The reason for the display is that Pope Leo has a connection to St. Landry Parish (where Opelousas is situated - Louisiana has parishes instead of counties.) His 5th great grandparents were from here. At some point, Pope Leo ended up in the Chicago area. It's too bad because now he is a fan of the White Sox and probably the Bears. He could have been a fan of the Saints. What better team for a pope to cheer for than one named the Saints!