Hi
Everyone,
Our meeting for the novel The Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline was well attended. Becky,
Barb K., Cheryl, Christine G., Ginnie, Lori, Mary Beth, Sharon, and I met at
Panera Bread for our discussion. The book was hauntingly fascinating as we
learned about an occurrence in American history of which none of us were
familiar, the marketing of orphans.
The major themes in Baker’s novel include fortitude and
the human ability to thrive. The main character Vivian, a 90 year old woman,
must come to terms with her childhood and the trauma caused from her
experiences of loss and the abuse she suffered as an orphan. Vivian draws her endurance
during her orphaned years by remembering her family, especially the time she
spent living with her dad’s parents in Ireland. Vivian kept that spark of faith
close to her heart through the hardest of times as an orphan. She wore,
unceasingly, the claddagh charm her grandmother gave her for many years. The
charm represented love, loyalty, and friendship and that no matter where you
journey, the road will always circle back to home. This part of Vivian’s life
made me think of our family. After my dad finished his military duty in Fort Worth,
Texas, where he met my mother, he moved our family to Pennsylvania. There we
lived for a time in our grandparents’ crowded home. While living there all of
us were greatly influenced by our grandma’s Catholic faith and devotion. Like
Vivian’s, our grandma planted the roots for our own faith and love of family.
After leaving Ireland, Vivian took charge of caring for
her younger siblings and many of the important household duties in their poor
abode in New York City. Her father was an alcoholic and her mother was a tired
woman who had little left to give her family after scrubbing floors for a
living. As a result, Vivian’s place in her poor family became one of surrogate
mother to her siblings. Like Vivian, my oldest sister Lori took on similar
duties. After leaving our grandparents, our family first moved into a small
rental house where Lori was often left with us - five kids to look after. My
mother scrubbed floors at the Chicora Moose back then until she was hired as a
night shift nurse’s aide at Chicora Medical Center. Lori, like Vivian, was in
charge as my dad, an alcoholic, was almost never around. She took her job
seriously as Vivian did and like Vivian, Lori’s fortitude and strength were
born from the demands that were put upon her at such a young age.
How does anyone, let alone a child, endure the loss of an
entire family and go on? Vivian’s strength of character supported her through a
childhood of hard times. After the deadly fire of their apartment building, Vivian
is lead to believe she was her family’s only survivor. As readers we were
shocked at the servitude Vivian is conned into accepting by her neighbors the Schatzman’s.
Vivian’s resilience to adversity is clear as she acknowledges and overcomes the
cruelty of the conditions the Schatzmans place her within through the
Children’s Aid Society (an organization that profited from the sale of orphaned
children to people in the Midwest from the time period of approximately 1850 to
1900). Her coping skills are honed in spite of the vindictive people who made
her youth a living hell. She learned “to pretend, to smile and nod, to display
empathy” she “did not feel.” She learned “to pass, to look like everyone else,
even though” she “was broken inside.”
In her book, Kline eloquently parallels the life of a
teenage foster child named Molly with that of Vivian’s. Vivian and Molly’s
lives become entangled when Molly is assigned to clean Vivian’s attic as
community service for committing a petty crime. They bond quickly as the
mysteries of the attic are unpacked and Vivian begins recalling stories of the
past, stories where Vivian describes how it felt to be at the mercy of strangers.
As Molly intently listened, she knew full well what that was like, “to tamp
down your natural inclinations, to force a smile when you feel numb. After
awhile you don’t know what your own needs are anymore.”
“I’ve come to think that’s what heaven is – a place in
the memory of others where our best selves live on. Maybe I am lucky – that at
the age of nine I was given the ghosts of my parents’ best selves, and at twenty-three
the ghost of my true loves best self… People who matter in our lives stay with
us, haunting our most ordinary moments. They’re with us in the grocery story,
as we turn a corner, chat with a friend. They rise up through the pavement; we
absorb them through our soles.”
I had to continue reading.
We had some great books this year and hopefully more to
come for 2014. Bring your ideas to the annual Christmas party. We will meet at
the Hardwood Café on Rte 8 like we did last year at around 5 PM and then car
pull to the Hartwood Restaurant. Our dinner reservations are for 6 PM. With so
many different selection responses for choices of entrees, I decided not to go
with the limited menu. Everyone can just order what they want. It may take
longer, but we always have such a good time when we’re together, a few minutes more
won’t make a difference. Don’t forget to wear you glam and glitz for our big
night out!
Finally,
as for our Christmas home tour outing. We can attend the Butler Symphony
Christmas Home Tour as usual which is Saturday, December 7 this year. The names
of the homes sponsored are on their website. We
can buy our tickets as usual for $15 at May’s or Meridian Station. The other option we were thinking about was
the Cranberry Home tour; there are 8 homes on their tour:
Sunday,
December 8, 2013
4:00pm to
8:00pm
Tickets
are $20.00 per person
To purchase
tickets send a self-addressed stamped envelope
with
your payment to
Kathleen Perry
7753 Franklin
Road
Cranberry
Township, PA 16066
Let me know which tour you would
prefer to do as we’ll need to buy our tickets as soon as possible.
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving,
Tammy
