It’s not easy being a kid these days and it wasn’t easy when I was a kid either. Kids are small, vulnerable and in need of a lot of mental stimulation to reach their full potential. I was lucky to grow up in a loving family with a lot of support but unfortunatley a lot of kids don’t have that advantage.
I have no mother no father
No sister no brother
I am an orphan girl (Gillian Welch)
We had an orphanage in my home town when I was growing up. Connie Maxwell Children’s Home, we called it Connie Mack. These days big orphanages like Connie Mack are much less common than they used to be. Children without a parent to care for them are usually placed with foster parents or relatives so they live in a small household in the regular community. But I checked on the internet and Connie Maxwell is still operating, as it has been for more than a hundred years.
So now my mother, she’s gone to rest
In the land of purest joy
And I wonder if she thinks of me
Her poor little orphan boy (Carter Family)
Every kid deserves a chance to make it on their own but being an orphan can carry a stigma. Most orphans, especially these days, come from families that have become dysfunctional for one reason or another. What a barrier to overcome for a kid. Not only are you without a family, your potential family birth relatives are unable to help you and possibly not even a good influence for you. The human species is amazingly resilient however and despite these obstacles many individuals have overcome the odds stacked against them as orphans.
Among our founding fathers two individuals are notable. Alexander Hamilton had a rough childhood and was always tight-lipped about his upbringing, which he called “the subject of the most humiliating criticism,” Born on the Caribbean island of Nevis, he was the illegitimate son of a Scottish father and a French mother who was still married to another man. His father abandoned the family when Alexander was 10, and his mother died from fever just a few years later, leaving Hamilton and his brother orphans. A cousin tapped to serve as the boys’ guardian later committed suicide, but by then the teenaged Hamilton had secured a job as a clerk at an import-export firm on St. Croix. His intellect impressed his managers, and in 1773 a group of local businessmen put up the money to send him to New York, where he studied at what would eventually become Columbia University.
Fifth president James Monroe’s mother died in 1772, and his father died two years later. Though he inherited property from both of his parents, the sixteen-year-old Monroe was forced to withdraw from school to support his younger brothers. His childless maternal uncle became a surrogate father to Monroe and his siblings.
Eleanor Roosevelt was one of America’s most beloved First Ladies. Born in New York City in 1884, she was a shy and withdrawn child, losing her mother to diphtheria when she was eight, and then her father two years later who’d been confined to a sanitarium for alcoholism. After being cared for by her maternal grandmother, when she turned 15 she was sent to a private school in England.
As for musicians, Ella Fitzgerald traveled a difficult path on her way to becoming America’s “First Lady of Song.” Her parents split shortly after her birth in 1917, and her mother died unexpectedly when Ella was just 15. The aspiring entertainer was sent to live with an aunt in Harlem, but she soon drifted to the streets and worked as a lookout for a brothel and a numbers runner for an illegal lottery. Fitzgerald’s frequent absences from school eventually saw her placed in New York’s Colored Orphan Asylum, where she remained for over a year before running away.
Beatle guitarist John Lennon was raised in Liverpool, England by his aunt and uncle, Mimi and George Smith. His birth parents were Alfred and Julia Lennon, and their marriage was tumultuous and unhappy. When he was just five, his parents had separated and young John was forced to chose which parent he preferred to live with. Ultimately, he went to live with Auntie Mimi and he’d be 25 and world famous before seeing his father again.
Steve Jobs was born in 1955, but due to family in-fighting, his parents never married and Joanne left Wisconsin to deliver her son in San Francisco where she chose to place him in an adoption facility. He was soon adopted by Clara and Paul Jobs, a middle-class American couple after they promised his mother Joanne they would send him to college when he grew up.
Babe Ruth grew up in a tough neighborhood. He had difficulty staying out of trouble, and even at an early age was drinking, chewing tobacco, and throwing rotten tomatoes at police officers. His poor and exasperated parents didn’t know how to handle the unruly child and young George was sent across town to the St. Mary’s Industrial School for Boys when he was just seven. The school was part orphanage, part reform school and part trade school. The rules were strict but, fortunately for George, encouraged participation in athletics.
Edgar Poe was born in 1809 in Boston to David and Elizabeth Poe, his actor-father left the family when Edgar was just four, and the following year his mother died of tuberculosis. A Scottish merchant by the name of John Allan who lived in Virginia took the boy into his home and provided food, shelter, and education. Allan’s home was basically a one-man orphan charity center.
In that bright land they’ll be no hunger
No orphan children crying for bread
No weeping widows toil and struggle
No shrouds, no coffins and no dead (Carter Family No Depression in Heaven)
Helping to raise a young child is a great thing. As I well know, it’s hard enough when it’s your own kid. So my hat’s off to every person who raises a foster child or helps any orphan reach their full potential.
