Alone and Afraid. Christine Johnson

Imagine losing your parents at a young age. Your whole life would be turned upside down. According to family stories, my great-grandfather and his brother arrived in this country as orphans. They were fortunate. A family here gave them a home and a new last name. How scared they must have been in that time between losing their parents and finding a new home. How would they survive in a strange country? Would they have to work in order to eat? Where would they stay? How would they get by when they didn’t understand the language?

Many of us are fortunate enough to only imagine such a thing, but for hundreds of thousands of children in 19^th century America, that scenario played out again and again. Many of those orphans were children of immigrants, with no relatives who could care for them and no generous family to take them in. They ended up in orphanages or on the streets. Unwanted. Hungry. Often reviled.

By the mid-1800s, city orphanages were crowded, and many other orphaned children roamed the streets scavenging for food and other necessities. That’s when the idea of sending orphans away from the squalor of the cities to small towns and farms took hold. People like Charles Loring Brace of the Children’s Aid Society believed these children could get a fresh start in kind, Christian homes in Middle America. Thus was born what we now call the Orphan Train movement.

The first orphans sent west by train arrived in Dowagiac, Michigan in 1854. After the success in placing the children there, trainloads of orphans continued to be sent west from eastern seaboard cities through the late 1920s. Some found wonderful new families, some did not adjust to the change, and others ended up in bad situations. PBS aired a wonderful program on Orphan Trains in their American Experience series (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/orphan/).

I am blessed that my parents are still living. There have been times, though, when I felt alone and afraid. One time before I carried a cell phone, my car died on the side of the expressway far from home. The world suddenly became a scary place. Praise God, help arrived. Have you ever experienced a time when you felt very much alone?

Leave a comment today for a chance to win my May book, The Marriage Barter, the second book in the Orphan Train series!

In Love Inspired Historical’s Orphan Train series, the last unclaimed orphans on a train headed through Nebraska meet disaster when robbers attack the train. The series starts in April with Allie Pleiter’s Family Lessons, continues in May with my book, The Marriage Barter, and wraps up in June with Linda Ford’s The Baby Compromise. Though these orphans have good people advocating for them, frightening circumstances leave them feeling alone and afraid. In time they learn that love can conquer the most frightened heart and create new families from the broken shards of our lives.

Christine Johnson

The Marriage Barter

Love Inspired Historical

May 2013

Website: http://christineelizabethjohnson.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ChristineJohnsonAuthor

The Marriage Barter Interview

How exciting to have with us today Wyatt Reed, the hero from THE MARRIAGE BARTER written by Christine Johnson, a May 2013 release from Love Inspired Historical Romance.

1.  Mr. Reed, tell me the most interesting thing about you.

I can shoot a hole through a birch leaf at a hundred yards. All right. I guess that might not be interesting to the ladies. Let’s see. I’ve got a bullet lodged in my knee. Got it in the war. Fought for the Union, mind you. Part of General Sherman’s troops that blazed through the South to end that terrible war.

2.  What do you do for fun?

Fun isn’t a word I use much. I’m a tracker. That means I hunt for people who are missing. Mostly fugitives. That’s not fun, folks. It’s dangerous work. One mistake and you’re dead. I relax by riding hard. Dusty—that’s my horse—and I like a good gallop in open country.

3.  What do you put off doing because you dread it?

Anything, and I mean anything, that involves women. I gotta stay tough and alert to keep alive. A man tends to get distracted around the ladies, if you know what I mean.

4.  What are you afraid of most in life?

That the nightmares won’t end.

5.  What do you want out of life?

I don’t expect anything from life. If you don’t expect things, you won’t be disappointed.

6.  What is the most important thing to you?

It used to be faith and family, but the war took that away from me. A man sees things and does things in war that he’s none too proud of afterwards. I wish I’d done things differently, mind you. Every day. Sometimes when I see a family with young’uns, I get to dreamin’ about what might’ve been. If this here job works out, I’m heading west. Going clear to San Francisco. Maybe there I can start over.

7.  If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

I would never have lost my temper. I keep it under control now. Have to. But in the war, I let that anger loose, and others paid the price. Regret it every day, and that ain’t no way to live.

8.  Do you have a pet? If so, what is it and why that pet?

I’m a tracker. I’m always on the move. There’s no place in that kinda life for a pet. Closest thing I got is Dusty. He’s the best mount I ever had. Smart as tacks. Bit of a temper. Guess that’s fair enough considering I got a bit of one myself.

9. Can you tell us a little interesting tidbit about the time period you live in?

Ten years after the Civil War, and the railroad’s finally laid tracks across the whole country—coast to coast. Part of it passes right by Evans Grove, Nebraska, where I got this simple job to do. Seems a bunch of orphans got stranded here when their train got robbed. All I got to do is bring ‘em twelve miles to Greenville. The town’s offered a bundle of money for it too. I figure it’ll take me only a day or two, and then I’ll be on my way to a new life. 

FEATURED BOOK: THE MARRIAGE BARTER BY CHRISTINE JOHNSON

Mission: Children


Rounding up a gaggle of orphans isn't Wyatt Reed's specialty. Still, the bounty hunter is being paid handsomely to bring these children from Evans Grove to the next town. And then he sets eyes on one pigtailed, pint-sized complication, and the beautiful widow who needs his help.



Charlotte Miller's marriage lacked love, but at least it gave her the right to adopt little Sasha. Now without a husband, she can't be a mother. Wyatt agrees to be her groom-for-hire—only until Sasha is hers. But the man who couldn't wait to leave town is finding unexpected reasons to stay…and glimpsing a future surpassing any fortune he's known.

The Marriage Barter

by Christine Johnson

Love Inspired Historical

May 2013

http://christineelizabethjohnson.com