The Bereaved

Based on the author’s research into her grandfather’s past as an adopted child,and the surprising discovery of his family of origin and how he came to be adoptedJulia Park Tracey has created a mesmerizing work of historical fiction illuminating the darkest side of the Orphan Train. In 1859women have few rightseven to their own children. When her husband dies and her children become wards of a predatorMartha–bereaved and scared–flees their beloved country home taking the children with her to squalor of New York City. She manages to find them shelter in a tenement packed with other down-on-their-luck families and then endeavors to find work as a seamstress. But as a naive woman alonepreyed on by male employersshe soon finds herself nearly destitute. Her children are hungry with no coal for their fire. Illness lays them low and Martha begins to lose hope. The Home for the Friendlessan aid societyoffers free foodclothingand schooling to New York’s street kids. When a cutpurse takes the last of their moneyMartha reluctantly places her two boys in the Homekeeping daughter Sarah to help with the baby. Martha takes roommates into her one roomrotating her and Sarah’s bed in shifts with other struggling women. Finallyfaced with prostitution and homelessness herselfMartha takes Sarah and baby Homer to the Home for what she thinks is short-term care. When her quarterly visit to her children is blockedMartha discovers that the Society has indentured her two eldest out to work in New York and Illinois via the Orphan Trainand has placed her two youngest for permanent adoption in Ohio. Stunned at their lossMartha begs for her children backbut the Society refuses. Rather than succumb–the Civil War erupting around her–Martha sets out to reclaim each of them.