As part of Saturday’s Under the Harvest Moon Festival, the public will hear from the artist behind Dowagiac’s new Orphan Train mural.

The dedication for the public artwork will be at 1 p.m., in the 100 block of Pennsylvania Avenue where the mural is located, next to the Dowagiac Post Office. This event is free and open to the public.

The program, “Starting a New Life – Dowagiac’s Orphan Train Story,” began in May 2017 and has explored Dowagiac’s part in this historic event. Children’s stories were portrayed on stage at the Beckwith Theatre, behind the scenes stories and history was shared by the curator of the National Orphan Train Complex, in Concordia, Kansas, and now the programs come to their conclusion with the dedication of a mural.

The Orphan Train mural was the inspiration of Cass County artist Ruth Andrews.

In the mid-1800s, homeless, orphaned children roamed the streets of New York City. In 1853, Charles Loring Brace founded the Children’s Aid Society to care for these children.

Brace conceived the idea to send the children west on trains to new families (Michigan, at that time, was part of the western U.S.).  The Children’s Aid Society sent the first train of 46 children west in September 1854 with one destination: Dowagiac, Michigan.

After an arduous journey of two trains and two boat rides (including one across Lake Erie) the children arrived safely in Dowagiac. Over the course of several days, 37 of the children were taken in by local families.

This experiment led to 75 years of Orphan Trains placing out 250,000 children across the continental United States. Not all children had positive experiences, but many children got a new start on life.

Ruth Andrews began her artistic career as an experimental filmmaker in Chicago in the early 70s. Her work was included in film festivals throughout the Midwest and in 1974.  Her film, “Incumbent Mama,” was screened at Cannes.

Early indoor murals were made for Oaklawn Center and Elkhart General Hospital. Ruth’s award-winning paintings and sculpture have been exhibited at the Dogwood Fine Arts Festival, Art Prize, the Kalamazoo Institute of Art and other venues.

In 2010 Ruth partnered to create a 3,000-square-foot outdoor mural about the 1847 Kentucky Raid, located in the heart of Cassopolis.

Ruth became interested in the Orphan Train when her Michigan History Day students selected it as their project in 2016.

“The first Orphan Train didn’t come to Dowagiac by accident,” Andrews said. “Charles Loring Brace and [the] Rev. Clark Olmstead, of Cass County, believed the people of Dowagiac would make it work. They were right! I hope the people of Dowagiac are proud of this story and will be proud of the mural.”

Andrews was not the only artist laying a brush to this 675-square-foot canvas. Nearly 50 community adults, children, and area artists painted alongside Andrews over the summer.

The mural focuses on the experiences of the children who rode the trains. The nearly block-long mural, is divided into four sections.

In the first section, people may see the wretched life of street children in New York City around 1850. In the second section, they see the riders beginning their journey; already they look different — they are in an orderly line and they are wondering what their new home and new life will be like.

The third section is about the distance they traveled, both geographically and psychologically. When the children left New York, they gave up their prerogative to make their own decisions; now they will have to fit into a family and be obedient.

In the final section, people see them carefree and playing — acting like children for the first time in their lives.

“While we wanted to end the mural on a happy note, we didn’t want to overlook the riders whose stories didn’t end happily,” Andrews said. “In the steam from the train’s engine are ghost children, symbolizing those who ran away from their placements or were abused. The mural also contains a cameo of Charles Loring Brace, who conceived the Orphan Train. Hidden in the third section are things described to the children to help persuade them to start over: a horse, apples and pumpkins, a turkey and a cow. The mural invites its viewers to fill in some of the emotional and symbolic aspects of the story.”

The mural dedication is part of the Dowagiac Post Office’s celebration of its 100th birthday at its current site.

“Starting a New Life” is made possible in part by a grant from the Michigan Humanities Council, an affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the generosity of community members. For more information about “Starting a New Life,” visit dowagiacmuseum.info/orphan-train.