by E. F. Abbott
Nettie reached for Nellie’s hand and squeezed, one-two-three. Then she went and got them each another piece of apple pie.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
I don’t know if it’s better to remember or forget the hard things that happened to us in our lives. Mother Darrah made up for much of the bad, and we both had long, happy marriages. Miss Hill made certain that Nellie and I were kept together, and that was the best thing. Without my twin, everything would have been much different for me.
—NETTIE CROOK DARRAH ENNS, INTERVIEWED IN WE RODE THE ORPHAN TRAINS, BY ANDREA WARREN
Before homeless shelters, before today’s foster care system, before adoption agencies, the Orphan Trains chugged west, bearing children from the streets of Eastern cities to homes with families in every state. During the second half of the nineteenth century in America, there were essentially two methods of dealing with the poor: preaching at them or imprisoning them. In 1853, a young minister named Charles Loring Brace introduced another way. He founded the Children’s Aid Society to serve destitute children—tens of thousands of them—in New York City. Central to his goal of providing children with meaningful work, education, and functional families was a placing-out system (as distinguished from placing-in programs such as orphan asylums) that became known as the Orphan Trains. All told, approximately 250,000 children were Orphan Train riders, including twin sisters Nettie and Nellie Crook.
The term orphan train was not in use at the time Nettie and Nellie rode west accompanied by Anna Laura Hill. Orphan train is used here because the term has become widely recognized today. Less than half of the riders were actually orphans, though, and many, like Nettie and Nellie, had two living parents.
Not all of the Orphan Train riders’ stories were happy ones, and there were critics of the system. Most of the riders were white, like the families they were placed with, who were largely of Western European descent and wanted children who would be most like themselves. Children older than fourteen were typically not placed out. Sickly or disabled children, too, were not likely to find homes. And while many children became full members of loving families, many were taken in only to provide hard labor, many were housed in barns or attics, and many were abused. Nettie and Nellie were fortunate to have been removed from the Chapins’ house. They never knew who reported their abuse at the hands of Gertie Chapin, but they were forever grateful.
In the story, Nettie is curious about the number of children at the orphanage, and Joe is surprised to learn that there are other children riding the orphan trains. Why were there so many poor and homeless children? New York City saw a flood of people after the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825, which made New York the gateway to trade with the East Coast and the Midwest. After that, and across the turn of the century, approximately a thousand people a day poured into New York City from overseas and from all parts of the United States. Around the same time, New York saw riots, rising crime, and a widening income gap between rich and poor. Cholera epidemics, typhoid and tuberculosis, alcoholism, society moving into the Industrial Age while maintaining in many ways the attitudes and expectations of a farming and small-town era gone by—this is some of what set the stage for the problem of homeless children destined for lives of misery.
But not so for Nettie and Nellie Crook. Once settled with Mary Darrah and her husband (who died a short time later), the girls led happy, ordinary lives. They were excellent students who eventually worked their way through Kansas State University. When both married in 1930, Miss Hill sent each young woman a wedding gift. With marriage came a parting and separate lives, but late in life they lived right across the street from each other. As adults, they did reunite with their older brother, Leon, and with their father, who cried over them but never explained what caused the family to split apart. Nellie was the first-born twin, and she was the first to pass away, shortly before the twins turned 92. Nettie passed away in 2003, at age 98.
It is important—even consummately important—not to obscure the connection between the orphan trains and our own child welfare programs, because the consequences of [Charles Loring] Brace’s moral effort end—if they may be said to have ended at all—only now, in this moment, and in each succeeding moment, as we ourselves decide what we can and should do to help the “poor and friendless” children of our own time.
—STEPHEN O’CONNOR, ORPHAN TRAINS: THE STORY OF CHARLES LORING BRACE AND THE CHILDREN HE SAVED AND FAILED
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
E. F. Abbott is a pseudonym for Susan Hill, the author of many books for children, including a picture book adaptation of Lassie Come-Home. She lives in Portland, Oregon. You can sign up for email updates here.
BASED ON A TRUE STORY BOOKS
are exciting historical fiction about real children who lived through extraordinary times in American history.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Author’s Note
About the Author
Based on a True Story Books
Copyright
Text copyright © 2016 by Macmillan
Illustrations copyright © 2016 by Clint Hansen
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The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Abbott, E. F., author.
Nettie and Nellie Crook: orphan train sisters / E. F. Abbott. — First edition.
pages cm. — (Based on a true story)
Summary: Twin sisters Nettie and Nellie Crook are taken away from their dysfunctional parents in 1910 when they are only five years old, and placed in an orphanage—at six they are put on the orphan train by the Children’s Aid Society and moved from New York City to Kansas, ending up in a household where they are treated more as servants than children.
ISBN 978-1-250-06835-4 (hardcover) — ISBN 978-1-250-08033-2 (e-book)
1. Children’s Aid Society (New York, N.Y.)—Juvenile fiction. 2. Orphan trains—Juvenile fiction. 3. Orphans—New York (State)—New York—Juvenile fiction. 4. Twins—Juvenile fiction. 5. Sisters—Juvenile fiction. 6. Child abuse—Juvenile fiction. 7. New York (N.Y.)—History—Juvenile fiction. 8. Kansas—History—Juvenile fiction. [1. Children’s Aid Society (New York, N.Y.)—Fiction. 2. Orphan trains—Fiction. 3. Orphans—Fiction. 4. Twins—Fiction. 5. Sisters—Fiction. 6. Child abuse—Fiction. 7. New York (N.Y.)—History—1898–1951—Fiction. 8. Kansas—History—20th century—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.1.A16Ne 2016 813.6—dc23 [Fic] 2015004154
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First hardcover edition 2016
eBook edition February 2016
eISBN 9781250080332
