Forgetting Tabitha: The Story of an Orphan Train Rider
Julie Dewey, 2016
Holland Press
280 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780578172316
Summary
Raised on a farm, Tabitha Salt, the daughter of Irish immigrants, leads a bucolic and sheltered existence.
When tragedy strikes the family, Tabitha and her mother are forced to move to the notorious Five Points District in New York City, know for its brothels, gangs, gambling halls, corrupt politicians and thieves. As they struggle to survive in their new living conditions, tragedy strikes again. Young Tabitha resorts to life alone on the streets of New York, dreaming of a happier future.
The Sisters of Charity are taking orphans off the streets with promises of a new life. Children are to forget their pasts, their religious beliefs, families and names. They offer Tabitha a choice: stay in Five Points or board the orphan train and go West in search of a new life.
The harrowing journey and the decision to leave everything behind launches Tabitha on a path from which she can never return.
Author Bio
• Birth—September 30, 1970
• Where—Rochester, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., State University of New York-Potsdam
• Currently—lives in Manlius, New York
Julie Dewey is a novelist residing in Central New York with her family. Julie selects book topics that are little known nuggets of U.S. history and sheds light on them so that the reader not only gets an intriguing story-line but learns a little something too.
Julie's daughter is a Nashville crooner and her son is a student. Her husband's blue eyes had her at hello and her motto is, "Life is too short to be Little!"
In addition to reading, researching, and writing, Julie has many hobbies that include jewelry design, decorating, walking her favorite four legged friends, Wells and Hershey, and spending time with her triplet nephews.
Her works include Forgetting Tabitha: the Story of an Orphan Train Rider; The Back Building; One Thousand Porches; The Other Side of the Fence; and Cat (the Livin' Large Series). (From the author.)
Visit the author's webpage.
Book Reviews
For Julie Dewey of Manlius, one small article, read almost 20 years ago, was enough to spark a continued interest in the orphan trains of America.... Forgetting Tabitha follows a young girl who after tragedy strikes is forced to move to the squalid neighborhood of the Five Points District in New York City.... The [Sisters of Charity] offer her the chance at a new life, though doing so means leaving everything about her past behind, and setting of out west to start a new life with a new family.... This historical story does address some of the issues most common to those who experienced the orphan trains, including some mature content.
Syracuse.com
Discussion Questions
1. The orphan train riders in this book are each flawed in some way. Do you attribute this to their lot in life, or do you think it is innate? Discuss the flaws as they pertain to each character.
2. The author paints an image of time and place, richly detailed with descriptions that evoke emotion; which portions of the book are the most vivid to you and your experience when reading about the orphans’ journeys?
3. How was New York City’s treatment of the indigent different in the 1800s than it is today? Do you agree that the orphan train movement established by Reverend Brace was the impetus for our modern foster care system?
4. What surprised you the most about Tabitha and her journey?
5. Tabitha had many men in her life, her father, Scotty, Edmund and Pap, what do they all have in common?
6. Love and loss are themes throughout Forgetting Tabitha, not just between individuals but families. Discuss how this affected and was significant for each character as portrayed in the story.
7. Was Mary every truly able to forget Tabitha and would you want her to?
8. The author reveals that hundreds of thousands of orphans were sent on trains west. Were you aware of this time in our history?
(Questions courtesy of the author.)