Heart of La: Orphan Trains

"After 2 ½ years the mother didn't come back for him. In May of 1907, he was put on a train to Louisiana"

You can still hear the trains as they pass through the small town of Opelousas. A century ago, there were a few special trains that stopped here. The trains had a precious cargo of young passengers. They were orphans who had been in the care of the Sisters of Charity at the Foundling Hospital in New York City.

"They came with a little trunk, a little brief case of some kind, with a little bit of clothing and shoes," says Harold Dupre. His father George was one of those orphans.

"Since it was a catholic institution, they would appeal to the catholic parishes, like in southwest Louisiana it's mostly predominantly catholic communities.

Lucien lipari's father Frank was 3 years old when he arrived in Opelousas with dozens of other New York orphans in 1907.

"Just think of how many of us would not be here today if it wouldn't have been for the orphan trains," says Lipari.

The local catholic priest, Father John Engberink, recruited families and even hand carried their requests to the orphanage in New York. This one from a Doucet family, asks for a 3 year child, preferably with black hair and black eyes. The sisters would give the parents a receipt, telling them when the child would arrive. Each child had a numbered tag that helped identify them.

"It didn't work quite that well. Apparently it was kind of a bedlam situation when the children arrived," says Dupre.

Harold Dupre founded the Orphan Train Society of Louisiana. The group has just opened a museum in an old freight depot in downtown Opelousas. Dupre's father was also 3 years old when he arrived in 1907. Little George Thompson traveled with his 6 year old sister Agnes.

"You have to realize back in 1907 most people spoke only French here."

It was that language barrier that separated the young siblings.

"The wrong George, George Murphy, wound up going with the parents of Agnes Thompson. And she kept telling them all along you have the wrong George," said Dupre.

The brother and sister would grow up in separate families.

"Agnes tells the story about the time that she went to a church in Grand Prairie, Louisiana and she saw him and she said she went up to him to talk to him and he ran away."

More than 60 years passed before family members made the connection and reunited the long-separated brother and sister.

Dupre says the siblings finally came face to face.

"When I got them together in the 1970's they looked at each other. They both had blue eyes, they both had reddish hair and they looked so much alike."

Dupre says his father didn't remember the train ride, but Agnes had vivid memories.

During the decades that the orphan trains were leaving New York City with their young passengers, a quarter of a million children would find new homes all across the United States. 2,000 of those orphans would find their new families here in Louisiana.

The trains made stops in New Orleans, Morgan City, Lafayette, Opelousas, and Mansura. In 1919, a 3 year-old named Alice Kearns was on one of those trains.

"I was told that the people who picked me up, they said they had put me to bed between them at night and I had shook all night long. I shook all night long from riding that train. I guess and not knowing where I was going or who I was with."

At age 93, Alice Kearns Bernard doesn't recall the train ride, but has a faint memory of the New York orphanage.

"The only thing that I think I remember, it might have been a dream, but it was a row of white baby beds," says Kearns.

She says she still has the clothes she was wearing when she arrived, including a pair of tattered brown shoes.

"I had a name tag on the bottom of my little dress. I was addressed to these people because they had ordered me through the Catholic priest to come to them. I was sent like a package."

Many of the adoptive families and their children didn't talk about the orphans or their train rides to Louisiana. But now, thanks to the efforts of their descendants, their stories are finally being told.

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For more information, go to the Louisiana Orphan Train Museum website by clicking http://laorphantrain.com/