An Orphan Train Rider Finds a Home
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PBS Learning Media
An Orphan Train Rider Finds a Home
In this segment from the West by Orphan Train documentary, Mercy Train rider Bernadette Schaefer recalls her happy childhood after she was placed on a farm in Nebraska as a young child. Bernadette, was three months old when her then nineteen-year-old mother placed her at the New York Foundling Hospital. Eventually she was surrendered by her mother, allowing the Sisters of Charity to arrange for her travel to her new home on what was known as a Mercy Train.