From Orphan Train to Manhood

By Helen Allee Breedlove

In 1928, ten-year-old Lenvil OLoughlin and his two younger brothers are picked up off the squalid streets of New York City and put on an orphan train headed west. Scared and fearful of what the future holds, Lenvil only hopes the three of them can stay together.

When the train screeches to a halt in Lebanon, Missouri, Lenvils brothers are selected by a childless couple. However, Lenvil is left to agonize over the separation and is put back on the train to go farther west. In Springfield, he is taken by Eldon Detherage, a cruel taskmaster who wants a boy for no other reason than to work on his farm.

Fortunately, Lenvil has a champion in Eldons wife, Velma, who treats him with the kindness he desperately needs. As the impact of the Great Depression spreads, everyone is struggling just to survive. As the years pass, Lenvil copes with the hardships of life on the farm as best he can, but he also makes himself a promise: someday he will find his brothers and make a better life for them all.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jun 4, 2013
• ISBN: 9781475991031

Helen Allee Breedlove

Helen Breedlove is the author of three other novels and one anthology of short stories and poetry. As a child, she lived on a farm without modern conveniences and remembers her parents describing the hardships of the Great Depression. A retired teacher, she lives with her husband in Lebanon, Missouri.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Lenvil, you won’t let ’em take us away from ya, will ya? Five-year-old Merlin looked up with fear in his worried eyes as he pleaded for a promise from his big brother, ten-year-old Lenvil.

Pulling Merlin closer to him, Lenvil ached deep in his soul because there was absolutely no way he could make such a promise. If he did, it would be a lie and would probably result in the worst kind of betrayal. He swallowed hard and said, You and Ernest know I’ll do all I can, but we don’t know what’s gonna happen to any of us. We’ve been lucky so far that we’ve not been separated. But just remember this. No matter what happens, I’ll always love ya both. He reached out to seven-year-old Ernest, patted him on the shoulder, and also hugged him tightly.

The orphan train, upon which they were riding, had stopped at many towns on its way from New York City. With the train chugging along, belching out black smoke, and slowly coming to a stop as it approached designated towns, the blond-headed, blue-eyed O’Loughlin brothers dreaded each stop, fearful that each town might be the place where they would be forever torn apart.

Despite their fear, they marveled at the countryside—the trees, the hills, the creeks and rivers, and most of all the cattle and sheep—all sights they had never seen before or even imagined existed.

They had watched warily as one orphan train rider after another was chosen by families each time the orphans had been displayed before the assembled crowd. In each town, many curious onlookers and a few prospective takers stood by the tracks. To Lenvil, it seemed as if people were choosing the most desirable pets to take home, either for pleasure or for work. He felt as though none of the children on the train were regarded as human beings with real feelings and real loyalties.

Lenvil had listened to the talk and learned that some of the orphan train riders were runaways, some came from abusive homes or from orphan asylums, even some were members of street gangs, and others were homeless street kids like himself and his brothers. Most New Yorkers just wanted the no-good kids out of their city and out of sight, while a few organizations truly wanted a better life for the children.

Now the brakes screeched and the train came to a jolting stop at the depot in Lebanon, Missouri, a town in the Ozarks. Lenvil gripped his brothers’ hands. On the streets of New York City’s slums, he had looked out for them for a long time. How could he stand it if they were all separated? But to the authorities it didn’t seem to matter as long as they, their unwanted merchandise, were scattered west to other states and out of their city. Those in charge didn’t want riffraff like them wandering homelessly on the streets, committing crimes, or overcrowding the orphanages.

It had been several days since they and all the other children on the orphan train had been rounded up. They had been given a bath the night before their departure and told that it was for their own good—that the Children’s Aid Society was looking out for their best interests. They also stressed how fortunate the children were because this would be one of the last of the orphan trains, which distributed the children all over the country. But it was difficult for Lenvil to understand how separation from the only family he had left would be good for any of them.

He looked at those left on the train. The pretty little girls had been chosen first, then the very young boys. The big, strong boys as old as thirteen had all been chosen. Although Lenvil was young, he was well aware of what might happen to them. Life on the street had taught him a lot, and he felt sure that the fate that awaited the bigger boys was anything but good for most of them. Why else would a farmer choose them, except to be nothing more than a hired hand? But Lenvil supposed that there would be no hiring involved because there would definitely be no pay.

Knowing that the chances of him and his brothers being selected by the same family were remote, Lenvil was gripped with real fear as all the children were hustled off the train once again. He had already seen brothers and sisters torn apart and left to weep their goodbyes, knowing they would never again see the last of their families. His throat was dry from nervousness and worry.

A notice posted on the outside of the Lebanon depot announced the time and date the orphan train would be arriving. Although Lenvil could read very little, he was aware of the plea for people to adopt the homeless children. Wide-eyed, Ernest and Merlin looked up at him with a desperate pleading expression, and yet again, anguish left Lenvil trembling as they were paraded into the opera house and upon the stage.

All the children wore new clothes with their names stitched inside. The garments had been provided in order to make them more presentable and hence more desirable for adoption. After the long ride, however, their clothes were smudged from the smoke coming in the train windows on the warmer-than-usual April days of 1928. Some of the clothes didn’t fit properly, but their shoes were the most ill fitting, and blisters were common because of shoes that were too tight or so loose that they slipped up and down on the wearer’s feet.

After all the children were properly lined up, a middle-aged couple walked past Lenvil and his brothers several times. They eyed Ernest and Merlin but showed little interest in Lenvil before they spoke to the agent, a man charged with supervising the children. They pointed at the two young boys and whispered to the escort and nodded their heads. When Lenvil’s brothers were asked to come forward, Lenvil turned pale and his hands shook when he let go of each of their hands. Stepping forward, the two boys looked up at Lenvil with their tearful eyes begging him one last time to hang on to them and protect them from any impending separation.

The couple examined the boys carefully, apparently looking for any discernible defects. A husky fellow with a rather large head and brown eyes tilted each boys head back and with a deep voice instructed each to open his mouth enabling him to check their teeth. The red-headed, soft-spoken woman asked them to remove their jackets and to roll up their pant legs so that she could examine their flesh. She gently inspected their scalp, perhaps for any signs of lice while the boys stood silently. Then she nodded her head to her husband, and they spoke to the agent. With their mouths agape, the three brothers couldn’t hide the fright that was reflected in their eyes. The agent produced a paper, which both the man and woman read and signed.

Boys, put your jackets back on, and come along with us, the man said sharply, and Ernest and Merlin were taken away without having a chance to turn to Lenvil and say goodbye. They gripped each other’s hand and turned their heads back toward their big brother one last time. He swallowed hard, fought back tears, and followed their movements as they exited the opera house.

A terrible ache in Lenvil’s chest nearly overcame him. His heart beat wildly, and he broke out in a cold sweat. The harrowing feeling that he had dreaded ever since they had left New York assailed him. It was fear for his brothers and fear for himself. He had the terrible urge to run after them and pull them back, but his feet seemed glued to the floor. All he could do was watch them disappear from his life. He was helpless to do anything. He agonized over the fate that awaited all of them, but he vowed he wouldn’t cry. After all he wasn’t a small boy. He was ten-years-old and had taken care of himself and his brothers for nearly a year on the squalid streets of New York City slums. Despite his vow, tears trickled down his cheeks. How could he cope with this separation from the only family he had left?

At least his brothers would get to stay together, but Lenvil worried about the demanding way the man had spoken, and he didn’t even know the man’s name. He knew he would probably lose all track of his brothers. He hoped someone in this town called Lebanon would select him so that he might someday see his brothers again. However, he soon learned it was not to be. The few remaining children were herded back on the train to unknown destinations and to a life full of uncertainty. Every step Lenvil took was like a lead weight pulling him down. He could hardly move forward, knowing he was leaving his little brothers behind. How would they get along without him to watch over them? And how would he get along without them?

Lenvil took a seat next to the window across from a rather homely girl who appeared to be about his age. He had previously noticed her limp and her club foot, and he had helped this gangly, skin-and-bones girl as she struggled to take the high steps required to get back on the train. Her big emerald green eyes that were set hauntingly deep into dark sockets on her drawn, half-starved face and her protruding jaw created a pathetic picture. Straight black hair cut short in a severe page-boy only added to the starkness of her appearance and further emphasized her gaunt expression.

Lenvil had heard one of the older boys, who had been previously selected, refer to her as Gretchen the Urchin. He felt sure that she would be regarded as damaged merchandise and therefore not selected by anyone. She would probably be sent back to New York. A pool of questions whirled in his head. If she were sent back, what would she do? Where would she live? What would become of her? And what would become of him if nobody wanted him? The answers created a dismal prospect for both of them. He heard Gretchen trying to suppress a whimper.

The train whistled loudly, startling Lenvil out of his bitter thoughts and unanswered questions. The locomotive hissed with explosions of escaping steam and lurched forward with a jolt—a jolt that almost equaled Lenvil’s pounding heart. As the train gained momentum and chugged along ever faster and farther away from his little brothers, Lenvil struggled to breathe, gasping with the realization that he would never see them again. He agonized for them, knowing that they were frightened of this new life that was being thrust upon them. The cruelty of life struck him full force, and he felt his body was being pulled apart. He had known cruelty and hard times before, but this was more than hunger or cold or living on the streets. He had lost his dad and mother, and now he questioned whether life was worth living without his brothers.

He was now oblivious to the cattle and other livestock along the tracks and to the spring scenery that had fascinated him only a short time ago. The dense forests and the wide open land that stretched into the distance had seemed almost unimaginable. He had never before seen anything like it, but those things were no longer of interest to him as the train whizzed along.

In an attempt to blot out the misery and despair, Lenvil closed his eyes, but tears escaped his eyes and rolled down his fair cheeks. He couldn’t erase the sorrow or the hopelessness and agony in his crushing chest. Instead his mind flashed back to the events that had led to this sad, devastating situation. It had all started when his dad had suddenly left the family soon after Merlin was born almost five years earlier. Life had been hard when his dad was around, but things fell completely apart after that. Lenvil hated him for what he had done. At one time, he had pitied him when he came back to their tenement apartment filthy and bone tired after working long hours in an unsafe factory for very low wages. His dad never complained much, always saying that there were other men, especially new immigrants, lined up to take his job. The dangerous jobs led to numerous accidents, but each time someone was injured or killed, he stressed the point that he had to push himself to hold on to the job he had—that he felt fortunate to have any kind of job. It kept the family from starving.

They had lived in a crowded fire-trap tenement apartment, where crime, filth, and disease were rampant. In his mind, Lenvil pictured the rats that had run about at night. He could still smell the decay of garbage and feel the stifling heat in the summers and the chill of the frigid winters, but his mother, a loving person who was devoted to her three sons, always told him that they were fortunate to have each other. When Lenvil played in the filthy streets below his apartment, he liked to look up at the ragged drying clothes that hung from building to building flapping in the smog and breeze. He often wished he could be as free as those clothes were.

Lenvil recalled the time his mother had told him, with tears streaming down her cheeks, that his dad had left them and wouldn’t be back. They were then forced to share a tiny apartment with another family who was good enough to take them in for very little money—money that would help them pay the rent, which was a struggle to come up with. They slept crammed together on the floor and on the two beds. The stench of urine was always present. Lenvil wasn’t sure where his mother got any money at all, but when occasionally a man would share her bed, he was perceptive enough to know she was doing all she could to earn their keep.

It was soon thereafter that his mother quit teaching him to write, to cipher, and to read from old newspapers she found on the street. She was simply too tired. She coughed constantly and spit up much of the time. Besides, Lenvil, she had told him, you know enough to get by. Why, I imagine you probably already read on the third-grade level. You know, you’re a very smart boy. Never forget that.

As his mother grew weaker, Lenvil took on more responsibility of caring for his two siblings, but by the time they were four and six, the family who had taken them in became adamant that they couldn’t stay there any longer—that his mother was no longer contributing to the rent and was a threat to their health with all her coughing.

Soon thereafter, two men who claimed to be the authorities come to the apartment and said that his mother could no longer stay there. Declaring that she had the consumption and could spread it to others, they informed Lenvil that they would take her that very day to a sanatorium for treatment.

No, you can’t take my mama. She’s ours! Merlin screamed.

Well, that’s too bad, kid! one of the men shouted. She’s going with us whether you like it or not! Merlin ran at him and bit him on the leg as hard as he could. Why, you little bastard! I’ll teach you to bite me! He slapped him across the face and shoved him aside.

Nine-year-old Lenvil and his brothers clung to their mother and wept uncontrollably as she was carried away on a stretcher. In a last futile effort, she reached out to them and whispered, Boys, always remember that I love you and this is not any of my doing. Lenvil, take care of your brothers the best you can. Promise me that. She held out a hand toward them, but it was a hopeless gesture. The boys cried out and shook their heads nervously as the men took their mother out the door and down the three flights of stairs. What would they do without their mother?

Later, Lenvil had pleaded with the family, with whom they had been staying, to let them stay just a little longer, but he realized that these poor people hardly had enough to eat and sometimes even had to eat food from garbage cans. The boys could no longer stay with them. They were out on the street at their young age. Lenvil knew then that he was the one who would have to be totally responsible for his little brothers.

Thinking back on the sounds of the city, he grimaced. Vehicles had roared by, and trains rattled on the tracks. Loud music and drunken couples had spilled out of the doorways of seedy places. The drunks were the most generous with their handouts, but some were also the most abusive. It had been a grim existence.

Now, here in a place called Lebanon, Missouri, his brothers had been taken away from him, and he was helpless to do anything about it. He had no control over their destiny nor his own. It was a petrifying thought. And sadly he wouldn’t be able to fulfill his mother’s last request of him.

Recalling all the misery, Lenvil involuntarily gasped loudly for air.

Are you asleep? Gretchen asked Lenvil in a whisper.

Naw, I’m awake, Lenvil said without opening his eyes. How can I sleep when I just lost my brothers?

Sadly, Gretchen stared off into space. What do you think will happen to us if nobody wants us?

Lenvil opened his watery eyes and saw the sorrowful look reflected on her face. I reckon we’ll be taken back to New York.

But what then?

Maybe we’ll be dumped back on the streets. I don’t know. He shook his head as if to dispel his bleak thoughts. That’s where I came from. What about you? Where’d you come from?

I came from an orphan asylum.

How long had you been there?

Ever since I was born, I guess. I was told I was left on the steps there at the orphanage when I was a baby, probably because nobody wanted me because of my foot.

Was it bad when you got older?

Gretchen looked away and stared at nothing in particular. It was all right, I guess, but I never got enough to eat. I was made fun of a lot. I was called Gretchen the Urchin ever since I can remember. That just sort of became my name, and so I really don’t know any better. She seemed to reflect on the past a few minutes before asking, What about you? Was it bad for you?

Yeah, it was bad, real bad. Lenvil steeled himself against his memories, but soon continued. He needed to talk about what it was like on the streets with his little brothers. After they took my mom away, we lived on the street, ate out of garbage cans, and begged people for handouts. Most of the people called us street Arabs or waifs or some such name. They said we didn’t deserve help—that we probably got what we deserved. I never could figure out how we deserved any of what happened to us. Anyway, I took to stealing whatever I could—anything to keep us alive. We slept in alleyways and on doorsteps, and in the coldest weather, we sneaked in places and slept in hallways. We covered up the best we could with old newspapers. One time we were turned in by some people that lived where we were bunched up in the hall. The police came and picked us up, but they didn’t want to fool with us, so they turned us loose. I wouldn’t have minded staying in jail. I’d have given anything for a warm place to sleep and for some decent food to give Ernest and Merlin. It was hard seeing how some people had so much and we didn’t even have a place, any kind of place, that we could put down our bodies at night. And it was even harder when my little brothers were crying every night for our mom. They just didn’t understand all that had happened and wanted me to tell them she’d come back. But I didn’t understand it myself, so how was I supposed to tell them anything that’d make ’em feel any better?

For a few minutes Gretchen thought about what life on the street must have been like for Lenvil. You had it a lot worse than I did. At least I had a roof over my head. If nobody wants us, I wouldn’t mind too much going back to the orphanage, but I hope somebody nice will want me. I doubt that they will the way I have to drag this old foot around, but I could do lots of work if anybody’d give me half a chance. She looked at her twisted foot and rubbed her leg. And I sure hope you don’t have to go back on the streets. After pausing a moment to reflect, she continued. But I don’t think this train is supposed to make too many more stops. I heard the woman agent telling the man that she’d be glad to get this trip over with so she could get back to New York. They’ll be glad to be rid of us.

I never heard of all the towns or states we’ve been through, but I’ll always remember the place called Leb’non, Missouri, ’cause I hope to go back there someday and find my brothers. There was a bit of skepticism and distinct bitterness in Lenvil’s hollow voice.

After making several whistle stops along the way, the train came to jarring stop at a big depot in Springfield, Missouri. The kids were shuffled off the train once again, told to use the restroom, and then displayed before the crowd of people.

Lenvil saw one lady, a sad-looking middle-aged woman, eyeing Gretchen. Finally, she asked, Is this the only girl you have left?

That’s it, the female agent answered indifferently as if to say take her or leave her.

Well, my husband died recently, and I need a companion and a friend, so I guess I’ll take her. She looks like she needs someone to love her, and I sure need someone to love me. Lenvil hoped the woman was sincere.

The agent seemed relieved to pawn Gretchen off on anybody and hurriedly produced the necessary papers. She told the woman to sign them.

What’s your name, little girl? the woman with red frizzy hair asked.

Shyly, Gretchen looked up and said, They call me Gretchen, but she was careful to omit the word urchin.

What’s your last name?

Gretchen looked confused. I don’t guess I have one.

Well, honey, my name’s Agnes Brown, so I guess from now on you’re Gretchen Brown. Is that all right with you?

When Gretchen nodded her head, Agnes took her by the hand and gently led her away, but Gretchen had time to smile meekly at Lenvil, wish him luck, and tell him a quick goodbye.

About that time, a big man with huge jowls, bulging eyes, and a scowl on his face looked at the few remaining children. He wore a blue plaid shirt and well-worn overalls that gapped at the sides. He looked at Lenvil. Is that the biggest boy you got left? he demanded of the male agent.

Yep, that’s it. All the bigger boys have been taken.

Well, he don’t look like much to me. Looks awful scrawny. Probably wouldn’t be worth much on a farm.

I’m sorry, sir, but that’s the best we can do.

Well, then give me that there paper to sign. I guess he’ll get bigger someday and might be worth somethin’ to me. After he signed the paper, he crammed another one that the agent handed him into his overall pocket and pulled his straw hat down farther over his ears.

Without asking Lenvil his name or introducing himself, the man growled, "Come on, you