Photography by Jason Dailey
Pay tribute to the children of the Orphan Train Movement by walking the Statue Stroll in Concordia
In 1924, 11-year-old Anna Fuchs feared she might not be adopted. She was missing fingers, had a bad hip, and was past toddlerhood—qualities that typically didn’t make her a desirable candidate. After recovering from tuberculosis and losing both parents to the disease, Anna and her two younger sisters were placed on the Orphan Train by the Children’s Aid Society in New York and sent to Kansas. Today, a bronze statue of a girl holding an umbrella honors Anna’s story. It is one stop along Concordia’s Orphan Train Statue Stroll.
Concordia is home to 50 statues that honor the children who came to Kansas on the Orphan Train. In an effort to find homes for orphans and children fending for themselves in New York City, the Children’s Aid Society started the Orphan Train Movement. From 1854 to 1929, more than 250,000 children were placed with families across the country; more than 4,000 were placed in Kansas. Concordia’s National Orphan Train Complex collects, preserves and displays the history of the Orphan Train, housing thousands of files on the children and hundreds of artifacts of the movement.
When the National Orphan Train Complex Museum & Research Center opened in 2007, Bobby and Wanda Morgan donated seven statues to commemorate the children who rode the Orphan Trains. These statues were placed on the museum grounds with markers that shared the children’s names.
The city of Concordia later approached the complex for help in rebranding the city as the “Orphan Train Town.” “As time went on, we thought we should really try to tell their stories on plaques,” says Heather Bigwood, curator at the National Orphan Train Complex. Concordia placed more statues alongside detailed plaques that shared the children’s stories. Today, an eighth statue stands on the complex grounds.
More than 220 descendants of Miriam Zitur—a child who rode the Orphan Train when she was a mere 19 months old—raised funds for her statue, the first placed in downtown Concordia. Since then, more statues have been added throughout Concordia to create the Orphan Train Statue Stroll. (For a full list of statues, visit orphantraindepot.org/orphan-statues.)
“The statues are of children being children; they may be fishing, they might be sitting down on a bench or reading,” Bigwood says. “The plaques highlight details about the Orphan Train riders—the special things that happened in their life.”
Only one statue, that of Anna Laura Hill (placed alongside Anna Louise Dougherty Simpson), was specially designed based on photographs in the complex’s collections. Hill was a Children’s Aid Society placement agent who cared for children aboard 157 Orphan Trains trips. She made sure they were placed in good homes, and she returned for in-home visits until the children turned 18. This statue, located at the Cloud County Tourism Visitors Information Center and Museum Annex, depicts Hill holding hands with the young, orphaned Simpson.
Ten statues have been placed along three blocks of Sixth Street, making a perfect mini stroll for visitors who don’t have time to drive around town. “Our museum can’t be open 24/7, so if you’re coming to Concordia, you can visit our main street to see these 10 statues to learn about the Orphan Train riders,” Bigwood says.
But what about little Anna Fuchs? Jennie Bengston, a caring boardinghouse owner and Sunday school teacher, took Anna into her home. Jennie bought her a piano, which she learned to play despite her missing fingers, and encouraged her to pursue higher education. Anna graduated from McPherson College in 1937 with a degree in music and education. In 1941, she took a job with Farmers Alliance Mutual Insurance and worked there until she retired.
