This past week in class, we read short stories in the epistolary format. I chose a story titled “The Gift”, which comes from an anthologized volume of short stories called Astray. The story takes inspiration from a period of time in America between 1853 to 1929, when there was mass migration of children on “Orphan Trains.” A quarter of a million children were sent from Eastern cities to rural locations in the Midwest and West, as well as Canada and Mexico. The story is about a woman named Mrs. Bell who gives up her one year old child, Lily May, up for adoption and her desperate correspondences to get Lily back from her adopted family, the Bassetts.
This story really intrigued me as I was reading it. I had forgotten that this mass migration movement had happened. It is almost like it is a forgotten part of history not taught enough in schools. I hadn’t realized how many orphans there were and it made me think about the countless number of families who took these children into their homes. Did the family dynamic change drastically? Were most of the kids younger or older? How did older children adjust to this new environment. I also thought about the identity of the child: did their name change once they were adopted like Lily May? If so, how did this impact the decision? Did the adopted parents have conversations discussing this or was it decided early on. Overall, I really enjoyed this short story and I look forward to reading more epistolary fiction.
