Grayson County TXGenWeb
 
Whitewright Sun
Friday, January 23, 1920

CHILDREN'S AID SOCIETY PLACES CHILDREN IN HOMES
The Children's Aid Society of New York City has placed eight children in homes in this section since the arrival of their representatives with eleven children. Misses Anna Laura Hill and Caroline E. Peterson are here with the children and will be here the remainder of this week. They are more than anxious to place the three children in homes in this section, as they have brothers and sisters who have been given homes here. The society does not like to separate children of one family, and its representatives will be glad to talk to anyone who might give one of these children a home.

The ladies are more than pleased with the homes the children have been placed in; in fact they state that they could not have asked for better homes for the children. They stated that they had never received better treatment anywhere than they have received at the hands of the Whitewright people. Everything possible has been done to make their visit to this city a pleasant one, and the best homes in the city opened their doors to the children and cared for them until a permanent home was found.

Misses Hill and Peterson are giving their time to finding homes for homeless children and are doing a noble work. They carefully investigate each home before placing a child in it and assure themselves that the child is in good hands before leaving it. All of the children in the party show that they have received good treatment and have been well trained by the society.

The following are the names of the children and the homes they were placed in - - -
John Acker, age 13, with Mr. and Mrs. F. E. Vittitoe; Warren Chandler, age 8, with Mr. and Mrs. J. L. Cooper, Van Alstyne; Raly Waters, age 13, with Mr. and Mrs. R. I. Moses, Ladonia; Tad Durfee, age 6, with Mr. and Mrs. George Bennett; Anna Miller, age 6, with Mr. and Mrs. J. R. Pennington; Agnes Slater, age 5, with Mr. and Mrs. Geo. Dugan, Bells; Hubert Slater, age 3, with Mr. and Mrs. Jim Watson; Caroline Lahn, age 10, with Mr. and Mrs. W. T. Simmons; George Lahan, age 5, with Rev. and Mrs. J. S. Meason.

Following are the ages and names of the three children that have not been placed in homes: Howard Slater, age two, Elizabeth Lahn, age eleven, and Anna Lahn, age seven.

The little boy assigned to Rev. and Mrs. Meason will be sent here later. He was not able to come at this time with his brothers and sisters as the home he was in when they left New York was quarantined on-account of mumps.


Alice Ayler

Above: Alice Ayler sits with a photograph of herself, taken when she was approximately 3, and the doll she carried from the orphanage on the last Orphan Train in 1930.

Right:
Alice Ayler, top left, and brother Elmer, bottom right, with their birth family, before they were sent west.


Clara Morgan
Lee Nailling

As a 7-year-old in 1909, Clara Morgan made the train trip west with brothers, Howard and Jimmy (pictured). Lee Nailling, then 9, first was excited by the train ride, then horrified when he realized that he and his brothers would be separated.
   
Helen Hale Vaughn



Like many other orphans, Helen Hale Vaughn and George Meason met through the Orphan Train Heritage Society.
Though they came from the same orphanage, their lives differed markedly in their foster homes.


Anna Forshee Scott

Sam and Anna during their teen years

"We always thought the Binions intended to adopt us, but the Binion children did not wan that to happen. I kept the Forshee name throughout, but Sam took on the Binion name. "
Sam went to California to work in the aircraft business.
Anna married Rufus Scott; they had one daughter.


Sam and Anna attended a one-room school in Oxford. Anna graduated 10th grade in 1928. She received a teaching certificate from East Texas State Teachers College.

Anna Forshee on the steps of
the
Zeph and Zora Binion home at Pilot Grove shortly after she was selected by the family.


George (Lahn) Meason

George & Julius Lahn arrived in Whitewright March 22, 1922. George turned 6 yr old on March 23. His family consisted of three sisters he rarely saw and Julius, three years his senior. All the siblings were separated.
His memories of John S. and Josie Ada Meason are vivid and they begin at the Whitewright train depot.

Some, like George Meason, came to call themselves "the white slaves of America."
The family moved to Richardson
when George was 12.
John S. Meason preached and worked with the undertaker who managed a hardward store and a funeral home in the same building and prepared bodies in the basement.

Once asked whether he liked his foster parents. "I said, 'They gave me a home when I was just a kid. But when you're a kid and your're growing out from under people who don't have any children ... you get to be a burden and an expense to them, and they realize that they made a mistake,'" Mr. Meason said.
"That was my introduction to my new family," he said. "My new mother gave me quite a licking before we ever left the railroad station."
After Mr. Meason completed high school, he was informed by his parents that he would join the Civilian Conservaton Corps. The corps was a work camp established in 1933 as a part of the New Deal to help unemployed citizens.
While in the civilian corps,
Mr. Meason worked in forestry and farming programs.




Adoptions
Elaine Nall Bay

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