Dear Lit Loves,
I am beginning to think I should just trust my book club when it comes to selecting books of fiction to place on my "to read" stack. This month's book selection was no disappointment either. We read The Orphan Collector by Ellen Marie Wiseman which takes a peek into a timely setting, the Fall of 1918 in the slums of Philadelphia where a thirteen year old immigrant named Pia Lange has just moved with her family to an apartment. The area is home to a host of immigrants, Pia's family is of German origin while others around her are of Irish origin. Right off the bat, the Spanish flu hits and Pia arrives home from school one day not realizing her world is about to change forever.
Schools shut down, restaurants, the farmers' markets, and people start dying in large numbers after attending a parade that some thought was a terrible idea due to the rampant spread of the Spanish flu. Pia's dad has joined the Army, but before he left her mother gave birth to two twin boys, Ollie and Max. While Pia is at home with her mom assisting with the care of her twin brothers, her mother becomes exhausted and passes away thereby leaving Pia to look after her twin brothers. So many people are dying that Pia watches as carriages and trucks arrive several times a day to pick up bodies of people who have died and their families have wrapped them in linens and deposited them outside their homes. Pia begins a resilient journey in hopes of keeping her brothers and herself alive until the epidemic ends. When she begins to realize there is no food she can find in the apartment for her twin brothers, she makes the decision to leave her brothers in a cubby in their mother's bedroom while she goes to various neighboring apartments to ask for food. And while she is trying to gather donations, Pia starts feeling ill and collapses in the street.
Meanwhile, there is Bernice Groves who lost her son to the flu. If I remember correctly, she also lost her husband to the flu as well. She is shell-shocked as she continues to leave her son's body in his crib and mourn for him. At a certain point, she wants to die herself. When she notices Pia leave her apartment without her mom and twin brothers, her suspicions are sparked because she had noticed at the market that Pia's mother was of German descent. Bernice is not keen on the influx of immigrants to the Philadelphia area. She wants the country to remain Americanized with only English speakers. She goes to check on Pia's mother and brothers only to find the apartment door unlocked, Pia's mother dead, and the twin brothers crying from inside a floor cubby. Bernice decides to take the twin boys.
Pia's life becomes one of endless trauma and unyielding guilt. She wakes up inside a church pew after being found collapsed on the street. She is being tended to by a nun who informs her she has been practically unconscious for six days. Next, she is deposited at an orphanage having no chance to return home to her twin brothers. The orphanage is located in an isolated area, is dirty, serves inadequate meals, and is filled with children of all ages. Pia is assigned to work in the nursery caring for and supervising the youngest orphans.
Bernice Groves decides to take the persona and uniform of a nurse. She calls herself Nurse Wallis and she basically decides to begin reading obituaries, locating families who have lost young children, going to Pia's orphanage and obtaining a baby or child and offering them to couples who have lost a child. And then she charges a finder's fee thus making money for herself and the twins. Immigrant children that are orphaned and who Bernice locates are placed on trains going to other states and families.
Pia gets sent to help a wealthy doctor's family. Upon arrival at Dr. Hudson's residence, she is introduced as being sent by the orphanage's lead nun to help Mrs. Hudson with four children. Mrs. Hudson isn't leaving the house and has a "No Visitors" sign on her front door. When Pia sees the affluence of the Hudsons, she is ashamed of her depraved state coming from an orphanage. The Hudsons take her into their home and she happily takes on duties of helping care for young children while simultaneously wondering what became of her twin brothers. The Hudsons realize too that Pia is gifted with being able to feel the afflictions of others when she touches them. The Hudsons' realize this when she informs them there is something wrong with their son, Leo, but Dr. Hudson is unable to find anything wrong with him. The next day Leo is deceased.
Following Leo's death and when the family is most vulnerable, Nurse Wallis appears to console Mrs. Hudson and the family. And one day, Nurse Wallis brings an orphaned boy whose mother could not keep him. Nurse Wallis leaves the orphan with the Hudson family for two days and returns to discover Mrs. Hudson wants to keep the child. That's when Mrs. Hudson learns that Nurse Wallis wants a tidy sum of money for the baby she has brought to the family. Nurse Wallis's shenanigans start to unravel once she recognizes Pia and leaves one of Pia's brother's homemade rattle at the Hudson residence. The pieces of the puzzle start to come together for Pia and The Hudson family. I won't give away the ending of the story, but suffice it to say, Bernice Groves gets her due and Pia uncovers what really happened to her father and twin brothers.
This book was published right when our Covid 19 pandemic was beginning. I thought the book demonstrated the varying choices people can make when faced with unrelenting trauma. It also evocates how trauma affects a person's psyche, and the manner in which cities across our nation handled or mishandled the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic. Plus, there was always the comparison in my mind while reading the book of how the pandemic we face today differs and yet is similar to the Spanish Flu epidemic. It's a beautiful book. I appreciated the author's willingness to befriend me and highly recommend this timely book.
Until My Next Review,
Grace
(Amy)
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