Orphan Train

I have not written in a very long time. I finished a novel called Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline about two weeks ago actually. It was originally recommended to me by Scott's mom, Jody. This story is a brilliant piece of fiction about finding where you belong and examining a "forgotten chapter of American history" (as the front of the book tells us). I became more interested in this novel which tells us two stories, one about a young Irish immigrant whose parents die in an apartment fire after they come to New York from Ireland and another story of a girl in 2011 who lives in foster care, after I had read the novel The Chaperone. In The Chaperone our main character came to the Midwest on an orphan train herself, and sees an opportunity to chaperone a young girl in New York as a chance to try and figure out where she came from. In Orphan Train, the young girl in foster care - Molly, gets in trouble for stealing a book from the library. Having been too embarrassed to ask her foster parents to get it for her she thought the library would never miss an old copy of a classic piece of literature, but alas she is caught. Molly's extreme desire to lose herself in literature reminded me also of The Book Thief. To make up her community service hours she works in the attic of an elderly woman named Vivian. She is supposed to help Vivian sort through her possessions, but through this sorting both of the women recognize that they are more alike than they originally thought.

Having lost her parents to a fire after moving to a new country, Vivian's story is one of turmoil, abuse, confusion, and desperation. However, as we find out, there will be a shining light at the end of her dark journey. After her parents' deaths, Vivian became a burden to society, and "nobody's responsibility." As she finds herself an one of the historical orphan trains she wonders what will become of her. On the train she finds herself thinking of what family might take her in ... but she is skeptical. "I know all too well how it is when the beautiful visions you've been fed don't match up with reality." She reminisces that her family was ill-prepared for emigration - the humiliations, the compromises, and she feels that they failed in every possible way they could in this new country ... she feels as though they took for granted all they had back home in Ireland. This is just the start of dark times for our young Vivian. 

Vivian's original name was Niamh, but she was then renamed Dorothy after being picked up by a married couple in Minnesota. This couple had no interest in her as a daughter but only as a worker in their house making women's clothes alongside other women (although the other women get paid, whereas "Dorothy" does not). Dorothy has to use the outhouse as she is not allowed to use the indoor toilet and she sleeps on a pallet that she has to pull out from the hall closet every night and sleep in the hallway while the people who took her in sleep comfortably upstairs. She is called an insolent child from the slums when she objects to their refusal to send her to school. Despite what they think of her she is very smart and feels abused at their disallowing her to continue her education (and instead continue working throughout the day). It was a constant stream of gossip on the train that all orphans would be treated cruelly from those looking to adopt - and "Dorothy's" guardians had no desire to even adopt her at all. 

Back in 2011 we have Molly who is treated very similarly as Vivian was back in 1920s and after. The only person who seems to treat Molly with respect and give her the benefit of the doubt is Vivian herself. Vivian remarks at one point that she can tell that Molly feels things. Deeply. Pointedly saying that she'll probably find it old-fashioned and sentimental, at one point Vivian gives Molly her copy of Anne of Green Gables and demands that she read it. The connection between that novel, also about an orphan being taken in, and Vivian who survived the terrors that hit her after getting off the train, and Molly, a Native American living in foster care with a foster-mom who is bigoted and selfish ... the connection at this moment in the novel is poignant to say the least. Having coincidentally found one another, Molly and Vivian start to help the other one heal. Molly's boyfriend's mother is the one who got her the gig with Vivian and her attic, but her boyfriend's mother constantly treats her like a lazy criminal. 

Vivian's story picks up again frequently and we learn that the people who took her in originally abandon her quickly during the Great Depression. When a man from the Children's Aid Society (the organization that runs some of the trains) shows up to take her away from the Byrnes (her first "foster" family), she is half-starving, sick of the padlocked fridge which is locked up nightly to make sure she doesn't steal anything, and as she is leaving the building Mrs. Byrnes says "She eats too much!" Something that showcases her mental instability and highlights the suffering young Vivian endured. 

Our young Vivian/Dorothy/Niamh is now being shipped off to a farm. In the dead of a Minnesota winter she arrives at a shack that is falling apart and sees children that she's expected to take care of who smell like wild animals and a pregnant mother who doesn't care about them.  

On her way to the Grotes ... this new wild farm family ... young Vivian reflects on how she is starting to retreat to someplace deep inside. "It is a pitiful kind of childhood, to know that no one loves you or is taking care of you, to always be on the outside looking in. I feel a decade older than my years. I know too much; I have seen people at their worst, at their most desperate and selfish, and this knowledge makes me wary. So I am learning to pretend, to smile and nod, to display empathy I do not feel. I am learning to pass, to look like everyone else, even though I feel broken inside." This heartfelt confession is the same sentiments that Molly feels after years of going from foster home to foster home. The feeling of not belonging, of not fitting in anywhere, of never feeling safe.

At the shack where she is a babysitter for children she feels nothing for, young Vivian finally starts to notice the beauty of Minnesota for the first time since coming to the state. The Minnesota farm county feels beautiful to her, and finally, back at school, she is starting to be treated with warmth from Miss Larsen, her new schoolteacher. Miss Larsen treats her like she's smart and starts to slowly rebuild her confidence in herself. This part of Vivian's story made me a little teary-eyed as I recognized the power that adults have in the lives of children, but more importantly the power that a teacher has over her students. Teachers can inspire students to become great adults, great human beings, or they can tear a child down and reduce them to nothing. Teachers should always be vessels of light and encouragement and in Vivian's childhood she finally finds solace from this warm women who teaches her in a one-room schoolhouse in the middle of nowhere, Minnesota. In this schoolhouse there are students from ages 6 to 16, and finally Vivian starts to fit in. 

Back to Molly's story we see more about her own struggles as a kid who feels like a burden to society. Her foster mom proves to be an ignorant asshole who makes discriminatory remarks against minorities (remember that Molly herself is Native American). Ralph, her foster father, genuinely tries to keep the piece and overall the two foster parents take care of Molly and under their household she pulls college-worthy grades and test scores. In Molly's American History class they are learning about the Wabanaki Indians and are given an assignment. They have to interview someone - "a mother or father or grandparent - about their own portages, the moments in their lives when they've had to take a journey, literal or metaphorical." They have to take oral histories using tape recorders and ask questions relating to the Wabanaki Indians' concept of portaging - carrying everything you possess from one place to the next. Molly decides to interview Vivian and it is here that Orphan Train starts to reveal some even darker secrets that might never have come to see the light of day had Molly not pried them open. 

We find out that something horrible happened to Vivian when she lived at the shack. And we hear that she runs. Her portage is one of survival. "And run I do, leaving almost everything I possess in the world behind me - my brown suitcase, the three dresses I made at the Byrnes', the fingerless gloves and change of underwear and the navy sweater, my schoolbooks and pencil, the composition book Miss Larsen gave me to write in ... I leave four children I could not help and did not love. I leave a place of degradation and squalor, the likes of which I will never experience again. And I leave any last shred of my childhood on the rough planks of that living room floor." Through the kindness of a teacher and the insolence of her protectors, Vivian finally starts to see that metaphorical light through the darkness. It takes horrible experiences, but eventually the kindness of strangers takes over. After a year of being in Minnesota, Vivian finally felt safe when her teacher convinced the owner of her boarding house to take in Vivian temporarily. And for the first time in her entire life, Vivian had a room of her own. 

Molly and Vivian start to rehash old memories. "Vivian has never really talked about her experience on the train with anyone. It was shameful, she says. Too much to explain, too hard to believe. All those children sent on trains to the Midwest - collected off the streets of New York like refuse, garbage on a barge, to be sent as far away as possible, out of sight." To reiterate the strong connection between the two, as Vivian talks about each memory triggered by each box they open in the attic, Molly starts to feel less alone. "When Vivian describes how it felt to be at the mercy of strangers, Molly nods. She knows full well what it's like to tamp down your natural inclinations, to force a smile when you feel numb ... More often than not, you see the worst of people. You learn that most adults lie. That most people only look out for themselves. That you are only as interesting as you are useful to someone." As this novel unfolds we start to ask ourselves about the foster care system, we question our nation's history and the choices that were made to send kids out to families who could abuse and use them with little to no consequences. We question the judgments we pass down on others without knowing their back stories. We question ourselves. We see that the personalities of these women have been shaped by their experiences. It is repeatedly brought up that you learn to pretend to pass through life even though you're broken inside. 

"I don't want to go into another home where I'm treated like a servant, tolerated only for the labor I can provide." Vivian finally gets the name "Vivian" when she finds a family who finally treat her like a daughter and not an indentured servant. Many people who reflect on the orphan train movement refer to the children from the trains as indentured servants - forced to work or submit to the whims of the family who took them in. Luckily for Vivian she found a family who gave her meaning, and luckily for Molly ... she found Vivian. In finding Vivian, Molly gets somewhat saved ... and in a way Molly also saves Vivian in return. 

"The people who matter in our lives stay with us, haunting our most ordinary moments." Vivian gives meaning to Molly's community service but more importantly to her life. This was a truly heartfelt novel that exposes a part of American history that is indeed often forgotten. It gives the tales of two women with similar lives in very different decades, and alas it shows us that though times may change many things still stay the same. Foster care is still somewhat controversial when you look at what some kids go through and how their lives can be forever tainted by the mercy of others. This novel also shows us the pure goodness of some people - people who can put other people on life-changing paths. This novel made me genuinely angry at times, genuinely fearful, genuinely sad, and at the end genuinely hopeful. Orphan Train reinforced my faith in teaching and showed me again how adults and children can impact one another. I highly suggest this book, and if you read it and like it I would also suggest The Book Thief and The Chaperone. Two books that have very similar themes to this one, The Book Thief and The Chaperone, talk about how adults can change the lives of children for better or worse; these books talk about the goodness of people and the power of love. Give them all a try - they'll heal your heart like chicken soup for the soul.