The Train Trilogy consists of Placed Out: Children of the Train, The Ring: Friendship, Loyalty, and Love, and Still Life: Then, Now, and Beyond. This absorbing historical fiction saga spans the years 1885 to 1919, with the action taking place primarily in New York City and throughout Texas.  

 

Between 1854 and 1929, Eastern cities placed an estimated quarter of a million homeless and destitute immigrant children on trains headed west. By the latter part of the 20th century, the trains had come to be known as “orphan trains” and the children as “orphan train riders.” 

 

The young riders were “placed out”—given away—to rural families across the country in hopes the children would have better lives. In the words of Charles Loring Brace, founder of the Children’s Aid Society of New York and the placing out movement, the aspiration was that each child would have “a sweet childhood of air and sky.” Indeed, some farm couples welcomed the child as a new family member. Others viewed him or her as little more than a temporary, unpaid laborer whom they owed nothing more than meager sustenance and basic shelter. 

 

The 75-year-long placing out movement was the largest, most prolonged social movement in US history. According to George Shaley, former curator of the National Orphan Train Complex in Concordia, Kansas, at least 40 million Americans living today are thought to have descended from orphan train riders. That translates into approximately one of every eight Americans. Most of them are unaware of the connection. 

 

The placing out movement itself remains largely unknown to Americans. I hope The Train Trilogy expands public awareness of it. That vast, lengthy movement is the starting point of the trilogy and is the thread that links the characters and their generational stories.