Riders on the Orphan Train

05/23/2026

05/05/2026

Incs Lake Burnet,TX returning to earlier ideas. My “Tours” are a work in meditation and impermanence. It took a little more than two hours to split the wood from one piece. The stacking maybe 15 min. It will stay in place until after dinner when I’ll take it apart. I will make a bundle from the sticks. I’ll get photos of that next.

04/11/2026

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1CKahxU9FM/?mibextid=wwXIfr

We use cookies to analyze website traffic and optimize your website experience. By accepting our use of cookies, your data will be aggregated with all other user data.

02/27/2026

WE'RE PROUD TO BE THEIR OUTREACH PROGRAM!

We are so honored to be voted the #4 best history museum in the USA!

10/28/2025

Volume 3 of Orphan Train Riders: Their Own Stories, compiled by Mary Ellen Jonson, is now back in stock! If you pre paid for a copy, watch the mail! It will be coming to you within the next 2 weeks! Thanks again to the Community Foundation for Cloud County Impact Fund for providing partial funding for this project!

10/11/2025

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1DjdUKPZvD/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Get ready! Our traveling exhibit is heading to Vinton, Iowa! There will be a special presentation by our friends Don and Martha Pauley about their research on an Orphan Train Rider. Contact the Benton County Historical Society for the time of their Oct. 25 presentation. And remember to confirm dates and times with the venue if you are traveling any distance to see the exhibit!

09/04/2025

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1Ct1Kksnf6/?mibextid=wwXIfr

September 4, Legacy of the Plains Museum 6:00 pm

"Riders on the Orphan Train" is the Official outreach program of the National Orphan Train Complex and Museum in Concordia KS. We are i

n our 28th year of touring with our program.

The Program is an hour and a half long of Live Music, Video and Storytelling. There are archival photos as a backdrop to the topical songs we sing, Alison recites a portion of her Historic novel and I tell the story of Lee Nailling, one of the Orphan Train Riders we knew. We present an Exposé about the Children’s Aid Society and the Catholic Foundling Hospital.

Few people today know much about the largest child migration in history. Between 1854 and 1929 over 250,000 orphans and unwanted children were taken out of New York City and given away at train stations across America, many of them to Nebraska. Between 1861 and 1925, over 4,000 children from the trains made their homes in our state in such towns as North Platte, Lexington, Broadwater, Elkhorn, West Point, Beatrice, Neligh, and many others.

To bring this rich part of Nebraska History to underserved areas in the state Humanities Nebraska has funded several presentations of the multi-media program “Orphan Trains to Nebraska” in July. The program will come to Legacy of the Plains Museum on September 4th at 6:00 pm. It is free to the public, and they want to thank Humanities Nebraska for sponsoring the event!

08/30/2025

PHOTOS I TOOK AT THE ORPHAN TRAIN REUNION AND REENACTMENT MARY ELLEN PUT TOGETHER IN 1997.

08/29/2025

Mary Ellen Johnson was our first and best Orphan Train Mentor.” We met her in 1997 and when she heard the song Phil and I wrote called Ezra’s Lullaby” she invited us to ride the train for the Orphan Train Heritage Society’s 10th anniversary meeting and reenactment in Springdale, AR. Mary Ellen had planned a ride on the Missouri Pacific “tourist train” from Springdale down to Van Buren. She had 22 children dressed up in period costume to do a reenactment of the children on the opera house stage in the manner that the Children’s Aid Society arranged their “placing out” system. Eleven Orphan Train Riders attended, including Howard Hurd and Fred Swedenborg, Art Smith, and, I believe, Alice Ayler and Sylvia Wemhoff. We boarded the 1914 Pullman cars (pulled by a diesel engine) in Springdale and rode through the Ozarks. It was October and the leaves were turning. Phil and I dressed up in period costume and stood in the aisle of the train car trying to keep our balance and play and sing over the diesel horn that blew at every pig trail crossing on the hour-long ride. When we got to Van Buren depot we all got off the train and walked together down Main Street to the newly-renovated opera house. Mary Ellen played the part of Western Agent Anna Laura Hill and presided over the children on stage, introducing each and telling their special talents (“This is Emma. She is 12 years old and likes to play the piano. This is Johnny. He’s 6 and already likes arithmetic…”)
It was a very emotional and authentic reenactment. Mary Ellen was passionate about the Orphan Trains and gave it her all. She said to Phil and I ,“Ive finally found you—you’re just as crazy as I am about the Orphan Trains as I am!” We served as the Touring Outreach Program in Arkansas for her organization, receiving grants from the Arkansas Humanities Council and the Department of Arkansas Heritage from 1998-2004. In 2006, I believe, all her records were transferred to Cloud County Community College in Concordia, KS and now the current repository, The National Orphan Train Complex carries on the work of preserving the stories of the Riders and helping descendants in their research. We now serve as their Outreach Program. We’re currently touring in Nebraska.
We will miss Mary Ellen. She changed our lives. Twenty-eight years on the road and counting! She was and always will be a treasure.