Traded for a Hog

I never know what I'll learn when Google alerts me to another Orphan Train story.

In this latest report, from Illinois, I wondered how the two brothers, placed in different homes, felt when they found each other—after 85 years apart.

And I paused when I learned that five percent of the U.S. population—that's about 16 million people—are tied to orphan train history.

But the story that stopped me short was about one small, not very strong boy, who didn't didn't become the worker that the farmer wanted. But all was not lost: the farmer traded the boy to a neighbor for a hog.

To read what Lynnette Forth wrote for the Prairie Advocate about Carol Chandler, the orphan train researcher who, when she dies, wants her research to be buried with her, click:

http://www.prairieadvocate.com/2016/04/17/orphan-trains-an-important-part-of-nw-illinois-history/atcb8hu/