For A Thousand Generations: The untold story of an orphan train rider - Paperback

by Ellen Corcoran Hart (Author)

In 1913 an unwed Irish girl, Bessie Brady, gives birth to a baby boy in the New York Foundling Hospital in New York City. She names him Ignatius, but knows she cannot keep him. Bessie signs him over to the Sisters of Charity at the hospital, who place lost, abandoned and illegitimate children on "orphan trains" to Catholic families mainly throughout the Midwest. Between 1854 and 1929 about 200,000 children were placed on these orphan trains for a better life. Follow Ignatius as he is sent out several times to families locally for adoption but is returned to the Foundling each time. When Ignatius was six years old, a childless couple in North Dakota requests from the Sisters of Charity a handsome, intelligent boy with brown or blue eyes. The couple promises the Sisters this boy will have everything, including a university education. The Sisters are delighted and select Ignatius to ride the orphan train to North Dakota. Will he be returned to the Foundling, or will he stay in North Dakota with his new parents? Will he be loved and raised as one of their own or will he become an indentured servant as many of these orphans do? And how does he wind up back in New York City and New Jersey during the Great Depression? See how his future unfolds with meeting a beautiful girl, who also grew up in foster homes and orphanages. For A Thousand Generations is a story of loss and return, of love and memories, of faith and a legacy for the generations.

Author Biography

Ellen Corcoran Hart is a retired Department of the Army Civilian, having worked in Army Public Affairs at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, as writer/editor for military newspapers. In Wiesbaden, Germany, she served as writer/editor for The Sustainer, an American forces military magazine. Ellen has published more than a dozen essays about her life experiences as a United States Army wife, such as, covering a Memorial Day parade in Epinal, France, honoring the 442d Regimental Combat Team, the most highly decorated unit in U.S. military history; riding the night duty train to Berlin before the Wall fell in 1989; and how she survived the white-knuckle cable car ride up to Mount Pilatus in Lucerne, Switzerland. Besides writing, Ellen loves to play her harp. She is married to Phil Hart, a retired United States Army chief warrant officer, has two children and six grandchildren. She lives in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Contact her at ellen_hart@ymail.com.