By Wendy Petersen-Biorn

It all started with a quilt.

Carver County Historical Society library researcher Marlene Magnuson attended a program by Ann Zemke, who used quilts to tell the story of her grandmother. Ann’s grandmother, Marjorie (Lind) Peterson arrived in Minnesota via the Orphan Train. Marjorie’s story made me wonder if there was a Carver County Orphan Train rider.

The story begins…..

New York City in 1830 was at best an immigrant Mecca, at worse a miserable place to live. In 1835, New York City claimed the title of the United States’ largest city with a population of 202,589. By 1850, the Irish Potato Famine resulted in a huge influx of Irish immigrants increasing the city’s population to 515,547 with one quarter of these people of Irish descent.

Thousands of homeless and/or neglected children roamed the streets in search of money, food and shelter. For protection against street violence, the children banded together to form gangs.

Children as young as 5 were arrested and placed in jail alongside adults, as there wasn’t a juvenile system in place. The volume of children on the street made a huge impression on a young minister named Charles Loring Brace. Brace wrote, “The great duty is to get [children] utterly out of their surroundings and to send them away to kind Christian homes in the country.”

Brace raised money, arranged trips and obtained the legal permissions to find new homes for the children. The Children’s Aid Society, a predecessor of the current foster care system, worked with children ages 5 and older.

Brace’s goal was to place children in Midwest farm families far away from the dangers of New York City. Some children would be adopted, others would remain indentured.

Children under the age of 5 were taken to The Foundling Asylum of the Sisters of Charity which was run by Mary Irene Fitzgibbon and a small group of Sisters in Greenwich Village. The Foundling Asylum was started in 1869 to care for the large numbers of abandoned children, in the wake of the Civil War. An infant could be anonymously left in a basket at the doorstep. The parent could simply ring a bell and leave. Within four months, 123 babies had been delivered into the Sisters’ care.

Both organizations sent children on The Orphan Train. The train, which operated between 1854 and 1929, was the brainchild of Brace. It is estimated that more than 150,000 orphaned, abandoned and homeless children were transported from New York City to 47 of the 48 continental states. One of those states was Minnesota.

Niehaus

The research for an Orphan Train rider began with a trip to the Carver County Historical Society newspaper index. April 11, 1889, Carver Free Press: “A contingent of orphan children from New York City arrived in this state recently. Gerhard Niehaus (Waconia) brought four of them into this county, adopting a bright little girl in his family. The others were distributed to families in the neighborhood.”

The Waconia Patriot carried Niehaus’ obituary on May 2, 1913. “His aged wife and two adopted daughters, Lillian and Anna, besides a vast number of friends are left to mourn his demise.”

A search for Anna revealed that Anna was the daughter of Henry and Ludwina Baesler of Waconia.

A newspaper search for Lillian yielded a marriage to Edward Schraan in 1906, the death of Schraan in 1909 and a second marriage to Joseph Meier of Plato in 1915.

At this point, with Lillian Meier having moved out of the county, our trail would have gone cold if it hadn’t been for Marlene looking in the Crow River Area Phone Book.

On a hunch, I called the phone number Marlene found for Mr. Willard Meier and talked to his wife Virginia. After a wonderful conversation Virginia referred me to Eileen Meier Sherrit, Lillian’s daughter.

From Eileen and her daughter Jill, I learned that Lillian had memories of her siblings and her parents, who were performers. She arrived in Minnesota wearing a maroon dress with a note attached. On this note was her given name, Elizabeth Kenny and her birthdate, Christmas day, 1884.

Sometime between 1884 and 1887, Lillian’s birth parents were killed in a buggy accident and she and her siblings went to live with their grandmother.

By early 1887, Lillian’s birth grandmother was unable to care for the children, necessitating the need to turn them over to the Foundling Asylum. She was 4 when she was placed on the Orphan Train headed to Minnesota. Lillian was a quilter and following her death in 1979, daughters Marcella and Eileen donated two quilts to the museum at the – Carver County Historical Society!

Gerhard Niehaus and his wife Anna formally adopted Elizabeth, whom they renamed Lillian. They also legally adopted their second child, Anna Baesler who was born in 1866 in Waconia. Anna’s parents were Henry and Ludwina Baesler.

Upon returning to the museum in Waconia, Larry Hutchings, our curator, confirmed the donation of the two quilts, both floral applique. It is interesting to note that my search for a local Orphan Train rider started with the story of another rider told through a quilt and ended with finding a quilt made Lillian Niehaus!

Minnesota became the first state to have a yearly state reunion of Orphan Train riders on July 1, 1961. The reunion moved from state to state and with each move the name of the reunion changed.

The first group was known as “Reunion of the orphans coming from the New York Foundling Hospital, New York Foundling Group, New York Foundling Orphans.”

The last name change was in 2005 when the reunion name was changed to the “[Minnesota] Orphan Train Riders from New York.” Minnesota will hold the 50th Orphan Train reunion this September. Numbers are far from exact, but reunion organizers are aware of six Minnesota riders still alive and 140 nationwide. It is estimated that there are four million descendants of the riders.

If you are, or know someone who was, an Orphan Train rider, we would love to hear from you. Lillian was one of four children who came to Waconia and accounts note that siblings were often kept together.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful we could locate the children Lillian came with and, by some act of God, they were in fact Lillian’s siblings?

Wendy Petersen-Biorn is executive director of the Carver County Historical Society.

Orphan Trains

For more information, and to

watch the PBS special “The Orphan Trains,” visit the PBS website:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/orphan/; or visit http://dlib.nyu.edu or

http://orphantrainridersofminnesota.com/

History –

Niehaus, Lillian – Child

Photo courtesy of the Carver County

Historical Society

Lillian Niehaus, at about age 10, a few years

after she was adopted, via the “Orphan Train.”

History

– Niehaus, Lillian – Adult

Photo courtesy of the Carver County

Historical Society

Lillian Niehaus, pictured as an adult.

History

– Niehaus, Lillian & Family

Photo courtesy of the Carver

County Historical Society

Lillian Niehaus is pictured with her

family, including, front row: Eileen Meier Sherritt; second row:

Marcella Meier Rueber, Anna Meier Varoman (it is uncertain who is

Marcella and who is Anna) and Willard Meier; third row Margarette

(Tootie) Schraan (daughter of Edward Schraan, Lillian’s 1st marriage),

husband Joseph Meier and Lillian.