The Legacy of an Orphan

Don't spoil the magic trick

I checked out instructional books on magic tricks from the public library. I practiced for hours, honing my skills and preparing to be the star of the show. The time had arrived for me to show my grandfather a card trick. He was a quiet man, and we weren’t close, so the pressure was on to impress him. With everyone watching, I prepared to dazzle him with my skills. The trick was going well and with a flourish I was ready to reveal the secret card.

But instead, I pulled out the wrong card. My grandfather, my dad’s father, had intentionally ruined the card trick. He was apparently smarter than a ten-year-old so he knew how to spoil the trick. Why would a grown man willfully crush a child’s spirit? Why would a grandfather provoke his grandson? Crest fallen, I looked to my mother for some explanation, some reassurance, some comfort. She sat there, fuming. And sadly, that is one of the few memories that I have of my Grandpa Goodnough.

Born in 1890, Grandpa was placed into an orphanage in Poughkeepsie, New York by his father after his mother died shortly after childbirth. He never knew his father other than as a name on a piece of paper. The orphanage no longer exists and there are no records that place my grandfather there. Apparently, the women who worked in the orphanage kept the records in their homes, to be lost through neglect and time. But the family story is that Grandpa ran away from the orphanage when he was about twelve years old and “rode the rails” to Minnesota where he became a cook in a lumberjack camp. He couldn’t read or write. He eventually met my grandmother, married, and had four children. Unfortunately, my youth and dysfunctional family dynamics prevented me from asking Grandpa about that part of his life but it’s doubtful that he would have talked to me about it anyway. Afterall, if he didn’t talk to his own kids about it, he wouldn’t open up to a grandson who he rarely saw. But doing some research for this post has given me more insight into what most likely happened.

In the mid 1800’s there was an explosion of homeless children in the large eastern cities of America. In New York City alone there were an estimated 30,000 children wandering the streets, begging or selling rags and matches to survive. Many were orphaned due to poverty or the loss of one parent, rather than the loss of both parents. In 1853 the Children’s Aid Society was established by a young minister named Charles Loring Brace. He had the well-intentioned idea of sending the children to farms in the Midwest where farm labor was desperately needed. The hope was that the orphans would be welcomed as a member of the family. Sometimes, however, they were welcomed as slave labor. They were sent by rail and the trains became known as “orphan trains”. Ultimately, the New York Foundling and the New England Home for Little Wanderers joined in the effort with the result that between 1854 and 1929 an estimated 200,000 children traveled west by train to be placed into new homes. A 1910 survey concluded that 87% of those children had “done well”, 8% had returned to New York, and 5% had either died, were arrested, or disappeared. It is highly probable that my grandfather was one of those children, was placed into a Minnesota farm family, and then ran from the farm at age twelve. He just disappeared.

I once asked my father if Grandpa ever expressed his love, with a kiss, a hug, or even verbally. He said that Grandpa only showed his love by providing for the family. That seems like a pretty low bar to me but maybe that’s the best that an orphan had to offer. Children raised in orphanages where loving adult interaction is inconsistent have difficulty forming relationships. The lack of affection can lead to attachment issues. Educational achievement suffers. There is a sense of not belonging, of being unloved, of being unlovable. Maybe having a stable marriage and raising four kids was a herculean accomplishment for an orphan.

It appears that I have judged my Grandpa Goodnough too harshly. Ephesians 6:4 (NIV) states: Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. Other translations use the word provoke. Fathers, do not provoke your children. The passage occurs in the context of instruction in family relationships, along with Ephesians 6:2-3: Honor your father and mother - which is the first commandment with a promise- “so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth”. In other words, for people to flourish there needs to be peace in the family. The family needs to be a safe place where there is no ridicule, no strife. Instead of provoking, the family needs to be a source of encouragement and support. Well, my grandfather never had parents to honor and all he knew as a child was provocation. My exasperation as a child, having a card trick spoiled, was nothing compared to the daily exasperation that he must have felt as a child growing up without love.

Despite his poverty of upbringing, my grandfather was a good man. He worked hard, was known by all to be an honest man. He once turned down a job offer from Al Capone, an offer that involved using his small trucking business to run whiskey from Canada to Chicago during Prohibition. He did the best that he could with the cards that he was dealt by the parents that he never knew. He just didn’t do so well with the cards that I dealt him. But, somehow, he managed to show enough love to his family to make them loving people. He made the choice to make a generational change. Each generation of Goodnough men that followed has improved in our abilities to express love in our relationships. I will never spoil my grandson’s card trick. Thank you, Grandpa Goodnough, for that legacy.

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