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American Experience: Annie Oakley DVD

My father rode the orphan train....speaker and sharer

Review by Dawna on 07/17/20 review stating My father rode the orphan train....speaker and sharer

My birth name is Reba Dawn Meason. I am the daughter of Audie Reba Henderson and George Lahn Meason. My father George Lahn was an orphan train rider coming out of NYC and he arrived in Texas in March,1920 knowing he was going to be taken in by the Measons. John Meason was a minister and Josie Brock Meason was a housewife. My father was adopted by the Meason family in 1921 approximately 1 year after he came to Texas. My father has a story I want to tell (his story much like many others).... a story he was able to tell late in his life. Prior to that, he didnt talk about it, he did not share it. My mother did not know for years about his ride on that train. She met my father through his birth sister Anna Lahn. She was Annas best friend and never knew that Anna and her sisters, Carolyn and Elizabeth Lahn, also came to Texas via an orphan train arriving a few weeks before their brothers Julius and George. Julius was a sickly child and was too sick for the 1st trip so they held daddy back to ride with his brother. Julius Lahn was a pastor for 22 years at the Bogata Church of God in Sulpher Springs. Mary Ellen Johnson developed an interest in the Orphan Train riders in the 1980s and started searching for them hoping to help these children make their place in history. That she did. My daddy was one of her early contacts and he was very active in Orphan Train Heritage Society of America out of Springdale, Arkansas. I hope to leave a message with each listener of the lives of these children which in many ways were different but in many ways alike. They were children hoping for a better life, love, a roof over their head and nourishment. I was blessed with attending many Orphan Train Reunions in Texas with my parents. In the beginning it was just a joining of souls who shared a like experience. In the end, I would say it was a healing experience very much like the one that is received when you can open up in Alcoholics Anonymous. It was OK to talk about it.

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Almeda Bohannan

Update: 2024-05-03