The Marysville Advocate

Oretha Ruetti

 Howard Dowell, 89-year-old retired farmer of Belleville, came to that town on an Orphan Train June 18, 1909, youngest child on the train. His family lived in a New York City suburb where his father died in 1908 and his mother in 1909, a few days before her death his mother called the Foundling Home to come for her children.

Dowell, then three, remembers climbing into the "high carriage" with his brother, Jimmy, and sister, Clara. but he does not recall the train trip until they reached Belleville.

"They put us up in a hotel overnight and the next day we were paraded up the street so people could look us over," Dowell said, He was taken by the Dowell family that had one son; his siblings all got homes. Dowell, too, learned from schoolmates that he was adopted.

He is fortunate to have pictures of his birth parents, a handsome young couple, and a group picture of their three children.

Today, 11 miles east of the town where the three-year-old orphan was marched up the street in 1909, Dowell owns 1,100 acres of land farmed by his sons. His brother is deceased, but his sister living in Bedfford, Texas, is still going strong at 95.