Orphan Train was my first encounter with a little-known aspect of American history. In the end I was glad to have read it because the story has a hopeful ending and because it reminded me of Christina Baker Kline’s 2013 book, Orphan Train.
Reading The Orphan Collector when restrictions are being lifted in Australia was hard enough, what with its eery resonance with the current pandemic and the graphic descriptions of corpses being left to bloat and rot because survivors can’t bear to part with their loved ones. I felt overwhelmed enough by my news feed and the daily count of infection cases and deaths on Wikipedia. Nor did I have the slightest inclination to read any ‘plague’ stories being spruiked by book sellers, such as the Penguin Random House list of Books About Epidemics. I couldn’t have read this book at the beginning of the COV19 pandemic when I was beginning to get paranoid about touching door handles at work and when catching a train meant unnerving encounters with equally paranoid strangers. She also feeds her xenophobia by rounding up the children of recent migrants and packing them off to the mid-west via the orphan trains. Bernice, who is suffering her own immense grief at the loss of her husband in the war and her baby to the flu, then makes a living by seeking donations for orphanages, money that she keeps, and by selling babies to distraught parents who’ve recently lost their own.
She’s also fed rat poison to a visiting nurse, and moved house so she won’t be caught for either offence. Ollie and Max are fine, we know that, because the second main character around whom the story revolves, Bernice Groves, has stolen them. A few days later still-when she is finally recovered-Pia is dropped off at an orphanage where she’s put to work looking after babies, all the time feeling anxious and guilty about leaving her brothers and wondering if they’re still alive. Venturing outside and into a wealthier area, Pia collapses on the pavement, waking up 6 days later in a church-hospital.
She then leaves the tiny boys on their own while she scouts neighbouring apartments, without much luck. The chronically shy child manages as best she can until she runs out of food. The Orphan Collector by Ellen Marie Wiseman is a horror story! Set in Philadelphia during the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, 13-year-old German migrant Pia Lange is left with her 4-month old twin brothers after her mother suddenly dies.
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