Imagine this:
You're in northwest Arkansas, home to the Ozark mountains, but you're not in the mountains. You're in the modest town of Springdale, population about 70,000.
You take a walk. You stride past green groomed lawns, smart-looking houses, and occasionally under a canopy of trees. It's summer, so you've work up a touch of sweat.
When you turn a corner you see—way down the street—a big brown box-like thing tumbled on one side. So out of character on this residential street! You pick up speed until you're standing by it. It's not a box, more like a trunk with wheels. You grab it, set it upright. My goodness, it's a baby carriage, an old time carriage, who knows how old it is.
But you know who might like it, your friend, Mary Ellen Johnson.
You set the carriage upright. Its wheels turn. The big buggy is in fine shape, rolling ahead of you to Mary Ellen's home. This is not the first time you've found treasures alongside the road and captured them for folks that might like them.
When Mary Ellen sees the buggy, she squeals. "Oh, look what you've got for me! It's a Stroll/O/Chair buggy, made in New York City, so sturdy, so well-built. Looks just like the buggies I saw at the New York orphanages when orphan train babies went for walks."
She rummages in her purse, comes up with $175 for you, and you saunter out, the money warming your pocket.
But that not the end of the story.
The buggy belongs in Concordia, Mary Ellen believed. At the National Orphan Train Complex there. She'd given NOTC her Orphan Train Heritage Society of America, Inc., when it became too much for her to handle.
Mary Ellen planned.
Her daughter gave the buggy a good scouring, and it cleaned up beautifully.
Mary Ellen called the NOTC museum curator, Shaley George, to see if the buggy would be welcome there. It would be.
Shipping prices totalled $175, just what she'd paid for the buggy. She would take the buggy herself, but she no longer drove long distances.
Then her grandson, Marcus Bowling of Fayetteville, Arkansas, dropped by. "I got some vacation days I got to take or lose. Any place you'd like to go?"
"Concordia, Kansas."
Eight hours after they set out, Mary Ellen, Marcus, and the buggy arrived.
Shaley greeted them. "We'll put the buggy in the foundling section of the museum." And there, in the old depot that's NOTC's museum, the buggy resides.
See a picture of the buggy and read a longer story by Sharon Coy, staff writer for the Blade-Empire. Just click or cut-and-paste this:
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