Poor as Church Mice: Children of the Orphan Trains

In 1870 in New York City, Nora, an almost thirteen year old, has become the sole support of her three siblings, Amanda, five, Charley, nixie and Nils, eleven. The Civil war has taken her father's life and tuberculosis has caused her mother to be bedfast. Nora has always heard, even as a young child, the history of her family and the promise her mother had made of keeping the family together as a family 'no matter what'. Nora's family is suddenly exposed as four young children struggling to stay together in their home with their sick mother and has to bow to the inevitable of being placed in a large orphanage 'while their mother is hospitalized. The day Nora hears her small sister declare herself an orphan, is the day she makes a decision that her family will ride an 'orphan's train' west to Nebraska to live with their father's relatives. Nora soon learns they are no more of a family in Nebraska than they were in the orphanage in New York City. Aunt Augusta has plans for the three older children and the adoption of Amanda. Nora once again takes her family on the road looking for a place they can live as a family.