Golden,Victoria: An Orphan Train Survivor

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Between 1854 and 1930, it is estimated that between 200,000 and 250,000 children were involuntarily put on Orphan Trains, and “placed out” in the southern and western United States. Both protections for the health and safety of these children and record keeping of who they were, where they went and accounts of what happened to them are sketchy at best.

William Delos Vansteenburgh was one of the last of the “placed out” children on an Orphan Train. At age four, he and his slightly older brother with whom he virtually lost contact, were “placed out” from Pennsylvania, after their mother died in 1930. William had clear memories of being loved and treated well until then. After a long train ride he was removed from a station platform in Gallup, New Mexico, by Henry and Eleanor Walters, a childless couple. They gave him their last name, repeatedly abused him and treated him in a most wretched manner for five years. He successfully ran away at age nine and was then free to create a unique adventure and life for himself until he died in Santa Rosa, California, in 2017.

Victoria Golden, (https://www.victoriagoldenauthor.com/) our guest in this edition of Radio Curious, met William Walters in 2012. Intrigued by his story and keen memory for details, they met most every week for the next four years. Golden recreated his story into a memoir: A Last Survivor of the Orphan Trains. Told in the first person, each page of Golden’s book could be a stand-alone short read.

Victoria Golden, also of Ukiah, California, visited the Radio Curious studios on July 24, 2018. We began our conversation when I asked her to describe the kind of person that William Walters was.

The book she recommends is Educated: A Memoir, by Tara Westover.

Totten, Dr Samuel: Genocide in South Sudan

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Once again we focus on the continuing genocide in the northeast African countries of Sudan and South Sudan. When the nation of South Sudan gained its independence from Sudan on July 9, 2011, the hopes for peace and safety of its citizens were high. That reality however has not come to be. The people of this area, especially those from the Nuba Mountains, continue to flee for their lives amidst an ongoing deadly famine.

Professor Emeritus, Samuel Totten, Ph.D., a genocide scholar, now retired from the University of Arkansas, is our guest for the fifth time on Radio Curious. Professor Totten, who has visited Sudan and South Sudan multiple times in the past decade, hopes to visit there again the end of July, 2018. In this program, he describes recent conditions in this remote part of Africa; the heroic efforts of others who have devoted their lives to the betterment of the people of South Sudan—told in the book he edited in 2017, “Sudan’s Nuba Mountains People: Accounts by Humanitarians in the Battle Zone”—and the plans for his pending trip there. He also explains what motivates him to risk his life by doing this work.
When Dr. Sam Totten and I visited by phone from his home in Fayetteville, Arkansas, on July 9, 2018, we began when I asked him to describe the location of Sudan and South Sudan on the African continent.

The book Sam Totten recommends is “The Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency,” by Barton Gellman.

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Mello, Mark: The Underground Railroad in New Bedford, Massachusetts

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New Bedford, Massachusetts, a sea port located in the southeast corner of Massachusetts, at the base of Cape Cod is the locale of our program. Early in New Bedford’s history a group of Quakers from Boston moved there and “New Bedford became a safe haven for formerly enslaved African-Americans” who had been able to escape bondage.

The stories of those who safely arrived in New Bedford on the Underground Railroad are presented at the 34 acre New Bedford National Historical Park in the Old Town section of New Bedford.

This two part series on the New Bedford Underground Railroad with National Park Ranger Mark Mello was recorded on September 2, 2016, with the sound of wind and street traffic in the background. Part one begins with a historical perspective of the Underground Railroad and the way in which New Bedford, Massachusetts was a safe haven for former slaves.

The books Mark Mello recommends are “Fugitive’s Gibraltar: Escaping Slaves and Abolitionism in New Bedford, Massachusetts,” by Kathryn Grover; “Whale Hunt,” by Nelson Cole Haley; and “Leviathan,” by Philip Hoare.

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