Annie Alden Lee
Tulsa World
by Ida Mae Wilhoit
Little Orphan Annie has come to our house to stay
Little Orphan Annie has come to our house to stay,
To wash the cups and saucers up,
and brush the crumbs away
To shoo the chickens off the porch,
and dust the hearth and sweep,
To make the fire, and bake the bread,
and earn her board and keep.
James Whitcomb Riley wrote the poem "Little Orphan Annie" before my mother was born, but his description of the chores assigned an orphan girl taken into a household probably fit my mother and many other Orphan Train Riders.
Even though the records of the New York Foundling Hospital show that her mother gave her name as Geraldine Alden when she brought her to the hospital, and she was actually baptized as Genevieve by mistake, no one in the town where she grew up ever called her anything but Annie or Anna. Because of that, I have surmised that she was early on referred to as "Little Orphan Annie" and the name stuck.
A woman who said she was her mother brought her to the New York Foundling Hospital on October 17, 1890, stating that the baby had been born 10 days before at home on Third Avenue in New York City. The mother said she would return but never came back. Genevieve/Geraldine was placed in one of the Foundling Hospital's nurseries where she remained until June, 1895.
At that time, at the age of four and a half, she was sent on one of the Orphan Trains to Pierce City, Missouri, along with several other children from the Foundling Hospital. These children were placed in the homes of various Catholic families in the community.
While still very young and living in the home where she was placed, Annie was given the job of taking out the ashes from the wood stove. "While doing this, her dress caught fire and her thighs were badly burned. Apparently the family she was living with did not treat her burns at all. A neighbor notified the local Catholic priest who took her away from them. He took her in a wagon to the home of another family and asked the wife if she would take my mother into her home. I was told by this woman's daughter (who was a few years older than my mother) that her mother insisted on calling in some field hands to witness the poor condition the child was in so that she would not be held responsible if she died. The lady who told me this said it was her job to put goose grease on the burns to help heal them. She said that my mother was unable to walk for a long time and they carried her around on a pillow.
In the next few years, Annie lived with several families and was treated very well. She had good memories of living with these families on their farms south of Pierce City. Even though she always thought of these people as family and they felt the same about her, she was never adopted and at a young age went into town to work as a servant. Someone saw that she received a little schooling, and I believe she finished the fourth grade. She was on her own then until she married my father in 1925 at the age of 35.
