Poor as Church Mice
Children of the Orphan Trains
by
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Charley was shivering so badly Nora could hear his teeth chatter. She wrapped her arm around him. “It’s going to be okay, Charley, you’ll see. In the spring when Mama is well she’ll come and get us and we’ll all go home.” “We can’t go home, Nora. Don’t you remember? Papa sold the house. By the time spring comes someone else will be living in it,” cried Nils. “We’ll just find us another one won’t we, Nora?” asked Charley. “Yes, we will, Charley. As long as Mama’s there, I don’t care where we live.” “How do you know Mama will even get well? What if she dies?” asked Nils.
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About the Book
In 1870 in New York City, Nora, an almost thirteen year old, has become the sole support of her three siblings, Amanda, five, Charley, nixie and Nils, eleven. The Civil war has taken her father’s life and tuberculosis has caused her mother to be bedfast. Nora has always heard, even as a young child, the history of her family and the promise her mother had made of keeping the family together as a family ‘no matter what’. Nora’s family is suddenly exposed as four young children struggling to stay together in their home with their sick mother and has to bow to the inevitable of being placed in a large orphanage ‘while their mother is hospitalized. The day Nora hears her small sister declare herself an orphan, is the day she makes a decision that her family will ride an ‘orphan’s train’ west to Nebraska to live with their father’s relatives. Nora soon learns they are no more of a family in Nebraska than they were in the orphanage in New York City. Aunt Augusta has plans for the three older children and the adoption of Amanda. Nora once again takes her family on the road looking for a place they can live as a family.
About the Author
Roselyn Ogden Miller through her love of children and children’s stories has shared many hours reading to children of all ages. It was through this love that she first became interested in writings of the children who were placed on trains and sent hundreds of miles away from their natural families to find new homes and become part of a. family again in the two books POOR AS CHURCH MICE, Children of the Orphan Trains and POOR AS CHURCH MICE Book II.
In sharing the first story of Poor as Church Mice in various elementary schools in Nebraska, South Dakota and Texas she learned how the children are being encouraged to create their own fiction. When a published author visit the school whether they have a story for the upper or lower grades the teachers ask that their students be allowed to meet a ‘real live author’. It was through this request that Mrs. Miler created PRARIE ROSE AND THE BEADED ANT HILLS. The story of a small American Indian girl who was created to represent all small American Indian children.