Their mother died of tuberculosis when they were young. There were five children. The father could not manage all that by himself. The other three were placed in relatives' homes in or near Geneva, New York, but no place was found for the two boys, who were sent to Ohio to live in the Orphan Home.
It was a sad sad story, and I often found myself shaking my head in disbelief at the poor treatment of the children. They had to work extremely hard, were punished very harshly, and never really had enough to eat.
One thing I did not really understand was why the children's shoes were taken away. They had to go barefoot in the summer, and did not get their shoes back until winter came. They were shoeless while they worked in the fields, shocking and stacking wheat, pitching hay, cutting corn--walking in the stubble---all while barefooted!
One image I think will always stick in my mind.
It got very very cold and the brothers still did not have any shoes. They were working in the fields and it was bitterly cold. The boys would wait for the cows to drop a plop. Then they would stand in the cow plops because they were so warm.
Incredibly, the brothers' conclusion, looking back, after a lifetime of living was: "I don't think those six years did us any real harm. And not one child died while we were there. And that was remarkable because the doctor was a veterinarian!"
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