Letter: Children Removed from Parents

When my mother was 2 years old, her mother died. Her father, in 1914, could not care for her and her siblings on his own so he put them all in an orphanage. My mother was eventually adopted to a wonderful childless couple but alone and not with her brothers and sisters. The trauma of her younger years stayed with her for life. She had terrible and frightening nightmares and would scream in her sleep even into her 80's. She told me she carried her younger years forever even though she found a family that loved her. Her brothers and sisters were not so lucky and several ended up in abusive homes.