By Claudia Loucks
Geneseo Current
Angie Snook
Angie Snook, Geneseo Historian, who served as curator/director of the Geneseo Historical Museum for many years until her retirement last year, will present a program, The Orphan Train, at 2 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 15, at the Geneseo Public Library.
In 1953, the Children’s Aid Society initiated a program to transport abandoned and orphaned children from crowed cities on the East Coast to foster homes in the Midwest. By 1929, an estimated 200,000 children, ranging from infants to teens, were transported to new homes.
At the library program on Oct. 15, Angie Snook will share her research, stories and photographs about The Orphan Train, a topic she refers to as “one of America’s best kept secrets.”…Of special interest, some local area and Geneseo families were involved in The Orphan Train program.
She will present stories about the children, the families who took them in, and the descendants of the children alive today.
Information received about the program states, “Some of the stories will warm your heart. Others will break it.”
The program is sponsored in part by the Illinois Humanities.
