Orphans with Parents: Very Common in the 18th and 19th Centuries

Southside of Chicago, September 1897––Asleep in the street in a neighborhood teeming with saloons, gambling, and prostitution, a young boy named Andrew was “rescued” by one of the newly-minted social reformers on the southside and turned over to the juvenile court system. Although Andrew’s parents were alive and well, they were saloon keepers and not mindful of where their son was spending time; nor did they seem to have any clear plans for his education or future. Andrew was sent to a boys’ school, where he was deemed an orphan. Six months later, the now ten-year-old was handed over, via a train ride to rural South Dakota, to a Russian-German immigrant farmer and his family, with whom he spent the next decade and a half of his life. Andrew's story, and that of many others in our families was all too common in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Read on for more information.