A Heartbreaking Story of Survival

filled star filled star filled star filled star filled star
kayla.keefer Avatar

By

The Orphan Collector by Ellen Marie Wiseman is both a heartbreakingly sad and poignant novel that is all too similar with what we are living through. Today the novel might be a glimpse into a different time in American history during the most severe pandemic in history in the midst of the First World War. However the themes of the story are more relevant than ever.

The story centers around 13-year old Pia Lange a German immigrant living with her mother Mutti and her infant twin brothers Ollie and Max in Philadelphia. While her father Vater fights in the war hoping that he and his family will fit in with their American neighbors given so much anti German sentiment.

The family is poor and struggling to get by but Pia knows that despite their less an ideal circumstances they have one another. She anxiously awaits her father’s return and until that time, her mother Mutti relies on Pia to help out with her baby brothers. Knowing Mutti is without her husband and overwhelmed Pia is happy to help her. Max and Ollie are her world she loves them with all her heart.

At the center of the family is Mutti a strong-willed and loving mother who bares the burden of keeping her family together while her husband is away fighting. She wants to blend in with and be well liked by her neighbors and feel at home in their new surroundings. That is why she doesn’t take no for an answer when Pia puts up a fight about going to The Liberty Liam Parade.

Pia wants to stay home but Mutti disagrees we have to fit in she reminds her daughter. What Pia doesn’t realize though is what going to that parade will cost her. A couple days after returning home from the parade Mutti is not acting like herself. Acting slower and complaining of feeling tired. Pia fears the worst. What if Mutti has caught the flu? but Mutti dismisses her daughter’s worries saying she is only getting older and is tired from taking care of the twins. She reassures Pia that she will be good as new after sleeping for a couple hours.

She instructs Pia to take care of her brothers while she rests. Pia complies with her mother’s request while Mutti goes to the bedroom to rest she never wakes up. Pia is worried when her mother does not wake up to feed the twins but finds her mother deeply asleep so she doesn’t bother her again. The next day however she goes in to check on her mother and Pia his horrified to find that her mother has died from the flu. Blood pouring from eyes and mouth.

The decisions Pia would make next would impact her for years to come. Bernice Groves is bitter angry and distraught. Her beautiful baby boy Wallis has just died from the flu and despite her best attempts at getting help for her son she is rejected. Her precious boy dies struggling for breath in her arms. What had she done to deserve this her beloved husband had died in the war and now her baby too. Why had God done this to her? She was a good and virtuous American.

She knew the real reason her baby had died it was because the city had been overrun with immigrants particularly Germans. Some had even said they were the cause of the pandemic. What does she do? She decides to not let her baby die in vain especially she finds two abandoned babies at her neighbors house. She had witnessed that Lange girl leaving her apartment one day. What an awful girl she thought. What kind of sister leaves her defenseless baby brothers alone to die?

Well she thinks they will be better off with me than her “immigrant” family anyway. Bernice longs to be with her son but decides to help other children in the city focusing on the “immigrant” children. She knows they will be better served living at the city’s orphanage and being taught “American values” than with their own parents. So that is what she decides to do she helps “abandoned children” and in return gets a small reward.

The nuns at St. Vincent orphanage cannot believe such a kind soul exists. Nurse Wallis as she was now known as loved “helping” children but Pia who ended up there after coming down with the flu and then being released didn’t trust her. All she had wanted to do was find her brothers for whom she had risked everything. Nurse Wallis though was very cold to her and seemed disinterested when she asked for her help in finding Ollie and Max. She was going to be stuck in this dreadful place forever with no hope of finding her brothers.

Her depression turned to despair when she was summoned to Mother Joe’s office telling her that they had found a family for her outside the city. Pia was distraught not only would she never be able to find her brothers now. Her best friend Finn Duffy had also disappeared after arriving at St. Vincent’s after losing his family to the flu. When she first arrived at the Hudson’s Pia felt more alone than ever she had been sent there to help Mrs. Hudson look after her children. Leo, Margaret, Sophia and Elizabeth.

She was reminded more and more of Max and Ollie and what she had lost.The more time she spent with the family the closer she became with them. Bernice or Nurse Wallis a cruel prejudiced bitter woman who did the unthinkable. Selling “orphans” but by now Pia had settled in with the Hudson family and had even told them the truth about what had happened to her. Life was at least bearable for Pia. When an unexpected visitor shows up at the Hudson home one day claiming to be sent from Mother Joe to help with the children.

That was only a story though. The baby that Nurse Wallis had given to Mrs. Hudson after Leo had died was really Rebecca’s son Cooper and in a cruel twist it was Nurse Wallis aka Bernice who had stolen Ollie and Max while Pia was fighting for their survival. I absolutely loved this story. It resonated with me especially given the COVID pandemic and the cultural sensitive times we are living in.