In late December 1909, twelve children stepped off the Frisco and onto a platform they had never seen before.
They had traveled from New York. Some still had living parents. Some had known more loss than most adults ever will. All of them were stepping into the unknown.
Seventy-five families in Laclede County applied to take a child into their home.
Seventy-five.
A local committee formed. Homes were chosen.
We don’t know who cried.
We don’t know who was brave.
We don’t know who dared to hope.
But we do know this – families here were waiting.
For more than a century, this community has been opening its homes to children who needed one.
In the Ozarks, this is what community looks like.
(Source: The Laclede County Republican, Lebanon, Missouri, January 7, 1910.
Photo: Frisco Passenger Train arriving in Lebanon, circa 1908-1909, originally sold by C.E. Clark Post Office and News Store, shared by Richard Crabtree, Memories of Laclede County MO)
