Astray (14 page)

We have gone to the hotel twice before, when orphan trains have come in, and enjoyed the songs and recitations, but never found anyone quite to our liking. There seemed a lot of older, rough-looking children. Mrs. Bassett would be afraid to take a boy, as harder to raise, and you never know. (It is not for farm work we want a child, unlike some fellow citizens we have seen squeezing boys’ arms at the hotel.) I have talked to our doctor, who is on the town’s Selection Committee. He said to write to the New York Society direct, and if you had a little girl who may answer our purposes, you might sew our request number right onto her hem, so she would not be given to anyone else.

Mr. Bassett, Sheriff

Andes

New York

November 3, 1878

My wife and I are so far much pleased with the child. At the hotel we took one good look at her, and then I nodded at Mrs. Bassett who could not speak, so I went up, and shook hands, and said, “You are going to be our little girl.” She seemed queemish at first, but is getting used to the animals and no longer makes a face at the milk warm from the cow. She has a funny habit of keeping her arms on the table at meals; I suppose she learned it to prevent any other orphan from snatching her food.

We will keep her on trial for now, just in case. But barring serious misbehavior or disease, we mean to keep her and give her our name, Bassett I mean. Her first will be Mabel which keeps two of her old names—May Bell—in a hidden way as it were. She will have her room to herself, and more bonnets than she can wear. I can assure you we will take her to school and church and treat her as “no different.”

Mrs. Sarah Bell

347 Grove Street

Jersey City

December 7, 1878

I could not give a proper answer to your letter last month as my heart was running over and remains the same. I am not ungrateful for this foster couple’s Christianity but I could wish the circumstances otherwise. I write now just to inform you that I have changed my residence to the above and to ask to be informed the minute if anything should happen to my Lily as I have awful dreams. In the country between dogs and barb wire and rivers there is no knowing what could befall a little stranger.

Mr. Bassett, Sheriff

Andes

New York

February 6, 1879

Our Mabel is now one of the most content of children, and growing out of all her clothes. She has a rosy face and is most affectionate. She speaks more than before, though not quite clearly, but my wife can always
make her out, so fears of feeblemindedness have been put to rest. She has quite forgotten her old name.

People here are civil, although I fear when she starts school, there will be a certain dose of meanness, as always among children. Such epithets as “bad blood” get thrown around with no thought for the hurt caused. Mrs. Bassett and I look on Mabel as quite our own, and could not love her more if she truly were. Your Agent can call on us anytime, we have nothing to hide.

I can appreciate that mothers do not like to part with their children, even to get them into much better situations. Can you assure us though that this Mrs. Bell will not be given our address? I have heard of cases where a woman abandons her child, and then lands up at the new home and makes scenes.

Mr. Bassett

Battle Creek

Iowa

November 3, 1879

Your last has, after some delay, reached us here in our new home. Please mark all future communications “Private,” and do not use headed paper as nobody here knows of our connection with the Society. That in fact was one reason for our fresh start, though land and opportunity
were others. It is mostly Germans round here, and no one seems to suspect Mabel is anything other than flesh of our flesh, a late gift from above. Keeping the secret we hope will shield her from the “pauper taint.” She is a good girl and a talented singer, though her speech is still somewhat less plain than could be wished.

Thank you for sending the “adoption form,” but on consideration we see no need for further fuss, and the risk of further publicity attendant on going through the courts. My wife holds to the principle that Mabel is our own already. We have made wills to provide for her future, all signed and sealed.

Mrs. Samuel Adams (Mrs. Sarah Bell as was)

697 2nd Avenue

Jersey City

April 23, 1880

I write to let you know of my change of fortune, as you will see from the above I am married again. We have “a good home” also (just as much as the couple who have got Lily May) and my husband Samuel who is in business is willing to welcome her into that home for which I thank God on bended knee as not every man would do the same.

If you have the slightest reservations you can send
one of your Agents to ask the neighbors what you like. I will always acknowledge your kindness and what these folks on the farm did in giving refuge to my Lily in a time of calamity but that time is over. Let me know how soon she can be brought back. I will hardly know my little one now!

Mr. Bassett

Battle Creek

Iowa

May 12, 1880

It shows heart that the mother has inquired, but there is no question of return like some parcel. My wife is upset the matter has been raised so cavalierlike, and says she will defy anyone to even talk of taking our girl away when we have already adopted her “in spirit.” To my mind it is the day to day that makes a family,
de facto
if not
de jure,
and since your Society thought fit to give Mabel into our care, there have passed some five hundred days. She is going on four and we are all she knows in the world.

If as you say this woman has a new husband, why can’t she make the best of it? Perhaps she will have more children with him, whereas Mrs. Bassett and self are past any chance of that.

I enclose a recent photograph so you can see how pleasant looking Mabel is turning out. I am in two minds about whether you ought to show the mother the picture. It might ease her to see how well the child is getting on, but then again it might increase the longing. On second thoughts, as it has the address of the studio on it, you had best not let her look at it.

Mrs. Samuel Adams

697 2nd Avenue

Jersey City

January 18, 1884

You may recognize my name as Mrs. Sarah Bell as I was before my present marriage. Since I wrote asking for my child Lily May near to four years ago and was refused, which I took very much to heart, circumstances have gone against Mr. Adams’s ventures. But things are looking up again and we have moved to the above, which if you send an Agent as I asked you last time they will see is a gracious home fit for any young person. The Lord knows I am not the first mother to have been obliged to let go of a little one in a time of trouble but now I am in a position to keep house and reclaim my own Lily May.

I think of her all the time, at seven years old what
kind of life can it be in the wilds of Iowa when she was always nervous of a cat even? You say this couple treat her as “their own” but that is only make do and make believe as they must know in their heart of hearts. What is done can be undone if there is a will and a way. Surely if you pass this letter on to them so they can hear a mother’s misery then they would have mercy if they are such good folks as you keep saying.

Mr. Bassett

Battle Creek

Iowa

September 24, 1885

I thank you for your two last. I apologize if mine had a “testy tone,” only Mrs. Bassett was ill at the time, and sometimes it seems as if we will never be left at peace with our girl.

No, we do not think it advisable to enter into any kind of correspondence with this Adams woman (Bell as was), or encourage hopes of a visit. Is it not a queer thing for her to resume her talk of retrieving her child after all these years? I fear she has hopes of being paid off, as it is well known that the blood relations only kick up a fuss if they sniff money in it.

Mabel is so much our daughter, we look back on the
time before God gave her to us, and cannot imagine how we got through the lonesome days. She goes to school and Sunday School regularly and learns quickly. She regards tardiness almost as a crime. She is largish and has good health on the whole, though hardly what you would call rugged. She has not the least notion of being an adopted. My wife and I abide by “least said soonest mended.”

Mr. Bassett

Battle Creek

Iowa

May 14, 1887

Enclosed please find the form completed as per and the fee of twenty-five dollars for the attorney. We never grudged the sum, it was only that my wife stood out against the intrusion and kept saying it smacked of having to pay for our beloved. But I have prevailed, since I live in terror of the mother turning up on our doorstep some day.

The NEW YORK CHILDREN’S AID SOCIETY hereby adopts to
Mr. and Mrs. Bassett
an orphan
named Mabel Bassett formerly Lily May Bell
as our child, to keep, protect and treat as our own. We covenant with said Society to provide said orphan with suitable food, clothing, lodging and medical attendance, in health and in sickness, and to instruct
her
adequately in usefuless, as well as to advance and settle
her
in life according as circumstances may permit.

Witness our hands and seals this
12th
day of
May 1887.

Mrs. Sarah Bell

214 Beckman Avenue

Jersey City

February 20, 1889

As you will see I am going by my old name again, Mrs. Sarah Bell. I have suffered a divorce since I wrote last but will likely be married again shortly to a much more worthy man. Just now I can be reached at the house of my father Mr. Joseph Prettyman, address above, if you wish to send me any word.

It seems I have known no luck in this world since the day my first husband Mr. John Bell up and died on me when Lily May my one and only was on my breast. These ties are mysterious and unbreakable, you call her “Mabel” but I will never use that name. Child stealing is what I call it, to send innocents by the trainload into the most backward parts of the country and hand
them over to God knows who all, even when they have family living back East. All I asked was to take my Lily home with me and who better to love her than her own mother whose only crime was poverty?

It occurs to me now that my darling is past twelve. I wonder does she think of me at all or have her “folks” so-called kept her in the blackest ignorance of who she is.

Mrs. Sarah C. Mulkins

Davenport Center

New York

October 26, 1894

You may remember me as Mrs. Sarah Bell. I have been married again for some years to a good man called Mulkins and we have a very comfortable residence, see above. The other day I was thinking about my Lily May as I often and will always do and nothing can prevent a mother’s heart from grieving, when I remembered that she comes of age next month. Surely at eighteen she should know the truth, that she has a loving mother who has never ceased from inquiring for her and never “abandoned” her as you cruelly put it, only gave her over for temporary safekeeping to preserve her from starvation. If she contacts your Society I trust you will in
Christian charity give her my address, you can do that much for all your cant of “legalities.” Won’t you please tell me how my Lily May is and whether I will be permitted to lay eyes on her again in this lifetime?

Mr. Bassett

Sioux City

Iowa

November 30, 1897

In response to your last several letters, I will tell you that Mabel was married this October 12th to a fine young man from Cedar County. We are much obliged to the Society for its concern over these long years, but now she is a grown woman and a wife, it seems to us her file should by rights be closed and as if it never were. You ask if she is ever to know who she is, which question Mrs. Bassett and I call impertinent, as she knows she is our beloved Mabel. We must insist that neither Mrs. Bell nor any other former connection shall ever learn anything about Mabel’s whereabouts. We keep the papers locked up safe and whoever passes first, the other will burn them. We are not wealthy folk but this one gift we can leave to our girl and will.

The Gift

From 1853 to 1929, America saw a mass migration of a quarter of a million children on “Orphan Trains” (the Protestant phrase) or “Mercy Trains” or “Baby Cars” (the Catholic terms), which carried them from Eastern cities to the more rural and unpopulated West and Midwest, as well as to Canada and Mexico. This story is based on sketchy notes, from the ledgers of the New York Children’s Aid Society, on the Society’s correspondence with Lily May Bell’s birth mother and adoptive parents (www.iagenweb.org/iaorphans/riders/bell.shtml). Some phrases are borrowed from letters in the archives of the New York Foundling Hospital, quoted in Lisa Lipkin, “The Child I’ve Left Behind,”
New York Times Magazine,
May 19, 1996.

Many birth parents did manage to get their children back years later, but not Lily May Bell’s mother. The child became Mabel Bassett, then changed her name again, on marriage to a local man, William H. Filson, in 1897. At the time of the 1900 census, the Filsons were still living in Tipton, Cedar County, Iowa, with their baby daughter. By 1910, they were divorced, and Mabel and their two Iowa-born children (Freda and Florence) were living with her parents in Los Angeles; the 1910 census lists Mabel as “daughter (adopted)” of Adam(s) and Elven [Evelyn? Elvira?] Bassett and gives her birth as New York, 1880. The date is about three years late, but the place is right; had her parents told her by then that
she was adopted, or did they whisper the secret to the census taker? Ten years later, the 1920 census shows Mabel still in L.A., but remarried, this time to a Nelson Middleton, with Florence and Freda (now a university student) listed as his “daughters” (no qualifying “adopted” this time). By 1930 Mabel and Nelson were living with Freda and her eight-year-old daughter, Evelyn Friel; perhaps Freda had been widowed, or divorced like her mother, or had the child out of wedlock. Finally, the California Death Index gives Mabel Bassett Middleton a birth of March 5, 1879, New York, and a death of January 23, 1948, L.A. If we accept the Children’s Aid Society’s record that she was probably born in 1876, she lived to be about seventy-one.