This is part two of a column that appeared in a recent edition of the Rochelle News-Leader.

“Placing out” was the term used for the placement of children. The logic of the day was that the fresh air and honest labor of the western farmer was far superior to the squalor of the larger city. Chicago was selected as a “Placing Agency.” It was a railroad hub and far enough away from New York that the children could not easily make their way back.

Agents of the Children’s Aid Society would travel through the Midwest and locate ideal rural communities. Meetings would be held with local civic and religious leaders to form committees to evaluate families wishing to take in one of the children to be placed. Once the committee was in place the children were taken by train to Chicago and from there transported to the communities to be placed with families.

The children were between the ages of seven and 15. The majority were male, but arrangements could be made for different ages and females. In 1869, Sister Irene Fitzgerald and Sister Teresa Vincent founded the “New York Foundling Hospital”. Within one year the Foundling Hospital was receiving 1,000 children a year. The numbers of children soon overwhelmed the Foundling Hospital and they decided that they would follow the lead of the Children’s Aid Society. The Catholic church was now “placing” children through the Chicago Placing Agency. The major difference was that one was primarily placing children with Protestant families and the other was placing with Catholic families.

With the local teams in place to evaluate families, the stage was set. Children were scrubbed clean, hair was trimmed and new clothes were worn. The train would roll into town at the appointed time and the children would disembark and make their way to a hotel, opera house or theater.

The children were numbered and stood for review. The local families would feel the child’s muscles, check their teeth and ask them to walk around watching for any physical problems. If the child was met with the family’s approval, they would select the child and take them home for a two-week trial.

The children, upon acceptance, would stay with the family until they reached adulthood. For girls, the age was 18 and for boys the age was 21. Upon reaching the adulthood, the male children were to be given $150 and two sets of clothes. For females it was $50 and clothes.

For Jim (age 10) and John (age 13), the trip was from New York to Chicago. At the Chicago Placing Center, a Mr. Burright from the Chana area dropped in and selected the two boys to help on his farm. Time passed and the two boys reached 21. Jim stayed in the area and continued farming. He bought 80 acres of just north of Illinois Route 64.

Today, the family farm exceeds 2,000 acres and the great and great-great grandchildren still manage Maplehurst Farms. Jim Carmichael even located his birth mother and brought her out to Ogle County. After many years apart Jim, and his mother, Jane, are both buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in Rochelle.

Remy (age six) and his brother Eugene (age eight) traveled to Rochelle and waited for inspection at the Baxter Hotel (DeLos). Remy was selected by John Cheshire of Holcomb and Eugene traveled to Chana with C. A. Schoonhoven. Eugene came of age and moved to Kansas. He later moved back and became a carpenter in Rochelle. Remy was a manager at the Dekalb – Ogle Telephone Company and also served 18 years as the City Clerk of  Rochelle. The Heydacker name is no longer common in Rochelle. 

Arch, Jake and Elizabeth Fisher were among the 20-some children that came to Rochelle. Arch was selected by a family near Chana, Jake and Elizabeth were chosen and stayed with families in Rochelle.

Elizabeth Fisher found not only a temporary family in the west, she found a permanent one. Elizabeth caught the eye of George Unger. George was a successful businessman, musician and twice elected mayor of Rochelle. George and Elizabeth married and today their great grandchildren are Don Horner, Fred Horner, Peter Horner and seven grandchildren. 

By 1929, the concept of “placing out” had fallen out of favor. The trains stopped and society explored more modern methods of assisting families. The term Orphan Train was added to the lexicon in 1979 with the publication of the book Orphan Trains by Dorothea Petrie and James Magnusson. The book became a movie by the same name and orphan trains has stayed with us since then even though only about 21 percent of the children were actual orphans. Throughout Ogle County in Forreston, Hazelhurst, Rochelle, Byron, Myrtle, Oregon, Adeline, Chana, Creston and Mt. Morris, Asylum Children found homes and for better or worse moved from children to adults far from the streets of New York.

Tom McDermott is a Flagg Township Museum historian and Rochelle city councilman.