She found no Rosie Breitowich Feit, but as she toured the exhibits, she imagined another Rosie, no longer tall and stately but short, perky, and dressed in typical immigrant clothes, including an unfashionable shawl. Imagine the indignity, Teresa thought, of being bathed and deloused before she could board the ship. The stink of the dining room. The crying of children. The thrill of arriving.
But what a gauntlet to run: inspectors, interpreters, doctors, nurses, waiters, con men with pamphlets about the marvelous prairies. Rosie never knew I ended up there. A little jolt shot through Teresa. “Ever in prison?” “Can you read?” Maybe here is where she chose the name Rosie.
How courageous Rosie had been, coming from a log house in a tiny hamlet, crossing the ocean to enter a new world, perhaps alone. Teresa left Ellis Island with a renewed pride in her mother.
•
Thursday, November 22, dawned bright and sunny, perfect weather for Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. In the hotel lobby orphans gathered to walk together to their viewing spot. Teresa looked for her roommate, Toni, but she didn’t see her.
“Forget her and come with us,” Mary Ellen said.
Finally Teresa did.
Police guarded the orphans as they pushed their way through crowds lined up to watch the parade. Even though Teresa knew Mary Ellen’s husband, Leroy Johnson, was a sheriff in Springdale, Arkansas, she was startled to see him on the street, helping the New York City police.
All ten blocks to the viewing site, Teresa looked for Toni to no avail.
Finally, apologetic Children’s Aid Society officials escorted the orphans into a junky, vacant building across the street from Macy’s. “It was the best place we could find on such short notice.” Teresa and the other orphans rode an elevator to an almost empty room, but its windows did face the parade route. Watching with them were about fifteen mentally retarded children. Teresa regarded them. We’re shut in with the outcasts. Typical.
For two hours, they watched tiny floats, bands, and balloons glide along the avenue. Not everyone had a seat, and those who did found them uncomfortable. The children, restless and bored, behaved badly, and many riders complained, but Teresa didn’t mind. She enjoyed the colorful spectacle unwinding below her, and their situation amused her.
Before they had come to New York, OTHSA told the orphans to plan to march in the parade, so they notified their friends and relations. Now hundreds of people from coast to coast, including Doris and Mildred, waited patiently before their TV sets, certain they’d see the riders walking in the parade.
Afterward, Teresa walked back to the hotel through the enormous crowd of spectators. She never did find Toni.
•
That night, riders gathered for Thanksgiving dinner in the hotel’s rooftop ballroom. Two Children’s Aid Society singing groups entertained them. Then Senator Patrick Moynihan compared the plights of children at the turn of century and today.
After dinner, to her delight, Teresa spoke to the senator, which excited her so she couldn’t remember, later, what they said.
Shortly after, Teresa spotted her roommate. “Toni,” she cried. “Where were you?”
“Oh, I had more interesting things to do.” Toni winked. “I was flirting around with some policeman.”
In their room that night as they lay talking, Toni said, “My foster mother and me, we were exact opposites. I was open and very—well, I don’t know exactly what you would call it. I said pretty much what I thought. But she was the type that, you know, talks about the neighbors but doesn’t let anybody know she’s doing it.”
“I know what you mean,” Teresa said. “Grandma and I were opposites, too. Grandma seldom spoke, but I just couldn’t be still. How my constant chattering grated her nerves!”
“Like mine?”
Teresa laughed. “I could listen to you all night.”
But she didn’t. Both women drifted to sleep.
After the reunion ended the next morning, Teresa packed reluctantly, knowing she’d miss her spunky roommate even though Toni could be blunt. “You’re so concerned about other people,” she had snapped yesterday, but this morning, she helped Teresa get ready to catch her flight.
“You’re so helpless!” Toni headed out the door with her own suitcase. “You’ll never make it to the airport in time!”
A few minutes later, Teresa called a cab only to discover that Toni had called one for her. She laughed. I guess I’m not the only one concerned about other people!
1
5
Home Again
Back in Hays, Teresa’s life settled into a pleasant routine. On Sundays she went to Mass where she wore her Star of David with its diamond chips as well as her Catholic cross. On Mondays and Fridays, she reported to her volunteer morning job as medical librarian. There she groaned at the inferiority of the Hays collection compared to the Denver medical libraries where she’d worked. Still, being able to use her specialized skills pleased her.
She read every day, and at night, she read herself to sleep, a habit she acquired after Frenchy’s death. At least once a week she called shut-ins for St. John’s Auxiliary, and once a month she made about forty telephone calls to remind Ivanhoe Club and LineWrights members of their upcoming meetings. She exchanged visits with her blood relatives, although not Arthur and Bernice. They were both dead, but she enjoyed her own offspring: two daughters, fourteen grandchildren, and more great-grandchildren than she could remember.
Teresa wearing her Star of David. (Courtesy of Teresa Martin)
Despite her many activities, Teresa managed to find time to date. Not that she wanted to marry again, but flirting was fun. And finding boyfriends seemed easy, although Teresa wondered what they saw in her, so old and so wrinkled. She met Joe Luecke, a great big upbeat fellow, at Toastmasters. They found they could discuss anything with each other. Teresa loved the way he treated her as an intellectual equal.
After Luecke died, her next-door neighbor, Scotty Riedel, courted her.
“Oh, Mother,” Doris said when she heard. “Not again!”
Teresa ignored her. She enjoyed having a man fuss over her, and she saw no reason to stop. Scotty couldn’t replace Joe, but he kindled her sympathy, as Frenchy had. Scotty was a good cook and fed her well; in return, she listened to his interminable stories. And he loved animals. He scratched Timi’s ears and laughed when the little dog danced on his hind legs.
Attending the New York orphan train reunion had changed Teresa. For days, people had treated her as a special person precisely because she rode the orphan train. New York journalists had interviewed her, a United States senator had shaken her hand, hundreds had listened to her story, and not one person had treated her like scum. Those days were over. Being an orphan train rider, once so shameful, no longer was.
At home, Crosswords, the OTHSA newsletter, arrived regularly, each issue crammed with stories of riders like her. How many orphan train stories had she heard or read? Hundreds, maybe. Dozens, certainly. The more stories Teresa encountered, the more familiar they sounded, the more they blended, even when their details didn’t quite match hers. She listened to stories of parents who were happy to be rid of their children, of parents who couldn’t wait to get them back but were too late, to stories, like hers, of parental desertion. Of children watching a parent die or going to the morgue to identify a parent. Gilbert Eadie’s story of riding excitedly to his mother’s burial in a carriage drawn by two black horses. Watching his father drop lumps of clay on his mother’s coffin. Then Gilbert dropping clay. The drunkenness of parents, having to beg for them.
Apartments with crumbling plaster, leaking roofs. Claretta Brown, screaming as rats ran over her bed and through her hair. Living in a tent. Sleeping on the streets. Living in orphanages, the bland food, the overcrowding, and the rows of white iron beds. The punishments meted out: locked in a pantry, dunked in cold water, slapped on the soles of the feet.
The unexpected new clothes for the train. Riding the train. Teresa’s memory o
f 1910 sometimes got mixed up with her recent New York train ride, and she couldn’t remember which ride left her with such a chill. The ride itself: older orphans taking care of younger ones; Bertha Schukman, two years old, bottle-feeding babies “in exchange for half an orange.” The weeping. And other orphans, so eager. Margaret Webber unable to sleep the night before. Lena Weast feeling so free, “like a bird out of a cage.” Dreams of fame and ease of country life. The “gawking” at deep canyons and mountains. Sleeping in their seats.
Being stared at by the crowd of people. Being lined up, like walking the plank. The pinches, pokes and prods. Being refused by the chosen caretaker. Being taken by the scary-looking one. Being left over, having to be placed by the agent. Brothers and sisters torn apart. Leo Rodgers, running after his brother, hanging on the spare tire, trying to stop the car. Running down the track after the train, hoping to get away.
Going to loving homes, to indifferent homes, to abusive homes. The changing of names.
Not letting children write home. The change of environment: no street lights, no traffic, no noise. The strange animals: cows, pigs, chickens.
The loneliness, the incredible loneliness.
Unable to speak. Having to learn a new language.
Being indentured. Children becoming chore boys or kitchen drudges. Washing clothes, fixing meals, feeding animals, gathering eggs, chopping kindling, picking up corncobs, taking out the ashes, cleaning bathrooms, milking cows. Standing on a box to learn how to wash dishes.
Being adopted. Becoming the child the foster parents couldn’t have, the child precious to the new parents.
Being treated differently from other children. “Stop calling us Mom and Dad.” Silence. Not being part of the family.
Gobbling food, afraid long fingers would snatch it, afraid each meal would be the last.
Being slapped. Being beaten with a stick, with a rawhide whip. Being stripped naked and whipped with a broom handle with nine straps nailed on it. Being locked in a cellar.
Being rescued by a neighbor. Running away.
Being shunned, being treated like scum. Having “bad blood.” Not fitting in. Being called names: bastard, mooncalf, mail-order kid.
Dealing with the visiting agent. Afraid and lying. Afraid of being taken back East. Being returned to the orphanage.
Living every day, as orphan Billy Landkamer said, “On the very edge of humanity.”
Experiencing all these orphan train stories helped Teresa understand that she, like a displaced person after a war, had been caught in a tide so deep and swift that nothing she could have done would have changed the course of her life. She remembered Toni’s question, “If you had it to do over again and you could change things, wouldn’t you?” Of course, she would, but who lives her life over again? As impossible as being born twice. This was just as well. She certainly wouldn’t want to repeat the life she’d led, but still, when she looked back at it, she saw that, despite its pain, it wasn’t such a bad life for an infant given away by its mother.
Newspaper reporters called Teresa, asking to print her story. Isn’t it strange, she thought as she answered their questions, that instead of trying to hide my background, I’m revealing it.
As stories about her life appeared, usually with her photograph, she became a local celebrity. Organizations seeking a speaker contacted her. She decided to speak whenever she could. Thanks to Toastmasters, she developed a certain way to tell her childhood story—full of detail, but not too grim.
As she grew more courageous about describing some of the grim aspects of her home life in Schoenchen, she was careful to end her talk something like this: “For years I was resentful, perhaps even bitter, about my foster parents, but as I matured, my anger seemed to go away. Now when I think of them I ask myself, ‘What else could they have done?’ Bappa probably agreed to take me because of his pride, and then regretted it. Grandma probably never did want me. Then, in all fairness, I have to say that I treated my foster parents with little consideration. I never wanted to be part of that Volga German culture, and I’m sure, in my youthful way, I made that clear. The Biekers didn’t want me, and I didn’t want them. Our situation was doomed from the beginning.”
•
Teresa at home in her St. John’s apartment. (Courtesy of Teresa Martin)
Teresa, now ninety-three, slowed down. She no longer attempted to polish her German, she stopped her part-time volunteer work at the university library—and perhaps more telling—she no longer returned to Denver to visit every few months as she used to.
Some days she would wake up and long to stay in bed. “Maybe,” she’d think, “I should stop working.” But then she’d remember that working kept her mind active, so she’d pull herself out of bed and go to work—whether she wanted to or not.
Teresa continued as Hays Medical Center librarian and also made dozens of telephone calls for various organizations. After Timi’s sudden death, she hated going alone to visit in the St. John’s Rest Home building. She knew how much the residents had enjoyed Timi, so Teresa regularly borrowed a dog from the Hays Humane Society to accompany her when she visited. She also talked to journalists or student historians about her life as an orphan, and she accepted occasional speaking engagements. But she was clearly slowing down.
In October 1999, when OTHSA awarded the Sister Irene Award to Teresa for “her endeavors in preserving the history of the orphan train riders,” she didn’t feel well enough to go to Arkansas and receive it. But she was proud of the tribute. No other Kansan had received this honor. Teresa was praised for speaking so often about her orphan train story, not only at reunions and to other groups but also to journalists and students. Francis Schippers, son of orphan train rider Frank Rafferty Schippers, received the award in Teresa’s name and brought it to her.
•
Soon Doris tried to talk Teresa into moving to Hill City into a nice assisted living community. “You know you haven’t been feeling well,” Doris said, “and your weight’s under a hundred pounds, and the nurse at Saint John’s is concerned that you’re not handling your medications well.”
Teresa felt her temper flare. “What’s wrong with the way I’m taking my medicine?”
“Never mind that. Just think how much easier it would be for you to live near me so I could see more of you. We could go shopping for clothes together.”
Teresa laughed. Doris knew her weakness. “Well, how much does this place cost?”
When Doris told her, Teresa was appalled. “It’ll take every bit of my social security. I can’t have that. Why, if I needed to buy stamps, I’d have to break into one of my CDs. You know I don’t want to touch those.” Teresa had purchased the CDs in Denver with the profit from the sale of her house, CDs that were to go to Mildred and Doris when she died.
By the time Doris came to Hays the following week to take Teresa to the doctor, she had discovered another solution, apartments for the elderly run by the Hill City Housing Authority. They were cheaper, but Teresa would have to do more for herself.
“That sounds better,” Teresa said.
Late Friday afternoon Teresa finally saw her doctor. “I can’t seem to eat or drink a thing,” she told him.
“That colon cancer you had about a year ago must be acting up again,” he said. “Didn’t you have surgery then?”
Teresa nodded. The cold round metal of his stethoscope lay heavy on her chest. He kept poking here and there and listening. She wished he’d get it over with.
Finally he stood and placed the stethoscope around his neck. “Sounds like you’ve already got a stent in your heart. Here. I’ll give you a few of these nitroglycerin pills, enough to keep you over the weekend. Then come see me on Monday.”
When Teresa reported what the doctor said, Doris fumed. “He just doesn’t want to be bothered during his weekend. Go get your pills and clothes, Mother. You’re coming to Hill City to stay with me.”
Once in Hill City, Doris drove Teresa to the emergency room of the Hill C
ity hospital. There a doctor diagnosed her with colon cancer, but he refused to operate on her. “She’s too old,” he said. “She’ll never survive the surgery.”
“I don’t believe you,” Doris said.
Monday morning Teresa and Doris were back in Hays at her regular doctor’s office.
“Forget about the surgery,” Teresa said. “I don’t want to be a burden.”
But Doris and the doctor insisted. “We want you alive,” Doris said.
•
When Teresa woke up after the surgery, both daughters sat in her room. She smiled and drifted off again. When she came to, she heard her girls arguing.
“She’s going to be fine,” Doris said. “She’s survived the surgery and the tumor is out. She’ll be okay.”
“I know you want her to live, but she won’t,” Mildred, a trained nurse, said. “She can’t. Look at her urine bag. There’s nothing in it. They can’t get her body functions going again.”
As her death became imminent, Teresa and her daughters discussed the disposal of her body. She wanted cremation, but neither Mildred nor Doris would consider it.
“Well, then, bury me in Colby,” Teresa said, “alongside Frenchy. He bought a space for me. My name is already carved on his gravestone.”
“But Colby’s so far away, Mama. Why don’t you let us bury you here in Hays, beside Daddy?” Mildred looked as though she would cry.
“All right, then, all right. Bury me beside Jess. Why not. We started out together, we might as well end up together.”
On Sunday, June 17, 2001, three days after her surgery, Teresa died. Many friends and forty-six of her forty-seven descendants attended her funeral, including Christopher Rosell Junior, who had made her a great-great grandmother when he was born March 17, 2000.
Mail-Order Kid: An Orphan Train Rider's Story Page 23
