Orphan Train Post-Reading

     “The things that matter stay with you,seep into your skin”,this is the quote coming from a childhood full of awful memories. Yet she made it through. In this blog I will touch on the finer points of what we think she is trying to tell us and give examples from her own life and how she knew this at a young age.

    The girls name in this book is Vivian. Or that is what she goes by now. But when she was very young and not yet on the orphan train and still had her family her name was Niamh. She was born with that name and it stuck with her. She never forgot about it because it was meaningful so it seemed into her skin and once something does that, it is stuck there forever. It might be a good or bad experience. Then a family called the Byrnes adopted her. Mrs.Byrnes was very tight and American so she changed Niamh to Dorothy. Vivian calls this in the book her “American Name”. After that she went to another family when the depression started and they kept her name as Dorothy.

    As time went on living with the Grote’s(her new family) didn’t work out and she went to live with her teacher who found her a new family. These people were much nicer and gave her everything she needed and a little bit more. They were rich. Now these people had lost a daughter and her name was Vivian. This is how Dorothy became Vivian. The point of this story is to show you that even though you might think that she would forget these names she didn’t because they matter and will stay with her until the end.

    She also stayed with many people along the way throughout her life but there was one person she will never forget. She met Dutchy on the orphan train and remember him until the night in the Cities that she found him again. She remembered saying to him that she would find him and they did find each other. She also remembered the name of the people that took her in, even the Grote’s children’s names. She remembered them because without them her story would have been very different.