Hamilton J. Brodie, Orphan Train Rider
Hamilton J. Brodie was born in 1856 or 1860 in New York to two immigrants from Scotland. He was left at the New York Juvenile Asylum by...
Illinois Orphanages -- White Hall, Greene County
Writing this blog has put me in contact with many people who have ancestors they cannot trace and who think they possibly came on the...
William Masterson tells a Secret (Part VI)
After a long break in his letters, William wrote to his sister in May of 1893. He had been to Mexico and worked as a cowboy: "Oh Ida I...
William Masterson, Making a Living (Part V)
Later in November of 1891 William wrote again, thanking his sister for the picture of herself she had sent. He could not return the...
William Masterson, The Missouri Years (Part IV)
William's next letter was written in August of 1891, when he was sixteen. The Charlton River was flooding at his new home in Elmer,...
Anna and Jerry Suda, Montgomery County
Anna and Jerry Suda came to Illinois in April 1895 and were initially placed in the home of Murray Easley in Walshville, Montgomery...
William Masterson, Pike County (Part III)
William Masterson's letters give me a view of the children that letters to the Asylum can never equal. Letters to the Asylum were...
Henry Bohn, Piatt County
When Mrs. Body wrote this letter in 1892 Henry had only lived with the family for a year or so. Although Henry was taking to farming, in...
William Masterson, Pike County, (Part II)
In January of 1888 William was disappointed that his letter with his photograph had possibly not reached his sister in New York. He was...
Joseph C. Eninger, Livingston County
Joseph C. Eninger was born in Connecticut in 1855 and sent to Illinois in 1868. He never wrote a letter until 1885, when he was working...
