Unknown: We did not know how why we were going to court that day.

We had no idea we weren't going back home.

I remember sitting in the courthouse on the floor, people would come by and look at us and might to certain ones.

We really didn't know what was going on.

Did that but the kids were screaming that people were calling on them.

And that was terrible.

Then my mom was walking up and down the halls and cussing my dad.

And they started taking starting to choose the kids up by Toto now you hang on Audrey, and don't let her go.

And I said, and I'm not going to turn off she Doris.

So just make them if they want them, they're going to have to tear him away.

And his kids would just bring them for him.

And I said, Well, we were all crying.

And I'm sorry.

Somebody asked us to sing a song and this guy took our pictures.

This program was made possible in part by a grant from the Illinois Humanities Council, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Illinois General Assembly, and the friends of wi ll.

On a sunny March day in Charleston, Illinois.

10 sisters who ranged in age from 16 to two arrived at the Coles County Courthouse.

Their mother Ruth and father, Glen Waggoner walk them into the courtroom.

What would happen that day would make the local papers and would shatter this family.

The day we went to court, I had no idea that they were, that was the last time we were going to be in that house.

The day had started like so many others.

The sisters are woke in the bed they all shared in their three room house.

The older girls help the younger ones get dressed, then they had been given a rare treat a chance to all ride together in the family car.

Every time we went in the car, we didn't care where we were going along as you're going somewhere.

We just felt like we were happy at home.

If even though we didn't have anything, we were happy we were together.

As America struggled to survive the Great Depression 10 Little girls and two brothers were living in what they thought was paradise.

It was paradise.

Paradise, Illinois, we ever seen so many pictures of one family.

I mean poor times.

These were a lot of pictures.

I had no idea who took them off.

But we were a happy bunch you know.

In 1932, Ruth and Glen Waggoner settled in a two room house near a branch of the little Wabash River in rural Illinois.

Ruth was pregnant with her seventh child and Glen worked off and on for the railroad.

Ruth remembered that Glenn was often gone, she felt abandoned with a baby on the way.

She threatened him with a rest unless he provided for her.

But the Waggoner family stayed put in paradise.

Their little house was the last one they would all share.

They said it was a chicken house, they cleaned it all out.

The rooms weren't very big.

I'll tell you right now.

And it wasn't near as big is just one room right here.

So we'd always have to make sure we had room somewhere to get out of somebody's way.

Every time we got another girl we got don't innovate with us, so didn't get tall because we didn't have to grow.

They say you grow in your sleep right?

It was fun, though it was funny.

At night before climbing into their one bed, the girls would hang a sheet in front of a light and make movies out of hand shadows.

Even without any toys to share.

The girls had plenty of playmates.

Cousins and neighbors gathered in the yard every day when I sat around as a child and spoke with my mother and my mother would speak with her sisters.

And they would all talk about their events as living in the house that they lived in and that tune they may have been poor, but they're very close.

We had several ways of entertaining ourselves.

We used to dam up the branch so we'd have a little swimming pool you know, wasn't very pretty but it was refreshing to get in and get out of a hot hot day and jump in there used to climb the trees and thing off there.

All the time until we seen a car coming.

And then we would run down under the bridge.

And so we'd be there for all the stones to fall in the head, dressed up the principles we had to set in front.

And people remembered that that was a replay.

We dressed them up like people, as kids didn't fight very much together.

I mean, between us, but if we did, my dad would make us fight.

So one day he comes home and he's got boxing gloves, if he got mad at one another.

That's how we worked with.

The girls were surrounded by extended family, including Glen's parents who live just up over the hill.

There, the girls would pick apples, pears and peaches.

The only thing she didn't want to send was her peach tree, and we got it anyway.

And they had grapes too, but we never knew grapes ever got blue.

By the time they got rides.

Just before we went to school, we would go get a new pair of shoes.

Sometimes, and one of them would wear out we would have to share and I usually had to share with Margie, she would wear the shoes one day, and then I would wear him the next when we went to school and took our biscuit sandwiches while the children that didn't have to eat that way, would beg us far.

They'd want to trade sandwiches with us.

I can remember Yes.

All of us been piled in one bed.

What I don't remember about home his dad or mom being around.

It's just not in my mind.

Ruth decided to look for work in Chicago.

Sometimes hitchhiking the 130 mile trip, she returned to the family on Friday night.

Jenny and doto quit school in order to care for their siblings.

From the sounds of it, they were left alone quite a bit.

I can remember mom telling me and daughter would do everybody's hair.

And she is when you think about her.

She's very prim and proper and frilly.

And that makes sense.

You know, everybody kind of had their place.

And Jenny, if you hadn't noticed, she definitely had to have been the one in charge all but most of the time.

And that most of the time they took care of us.

They just combed their hair with a fork because we didn't have any comb.

They kept us clean.

And when they clean the house, they would make us all set up along the bed and sit there until the floors were all dry.

And then they would let us up.

Even though it was a long ways away.

We always got went to Sunday school the kids did.

We were coming from church, they would come closer to the house and we're here.

So when I heard that I knew that they were fighting.

I mean, they really had knockdown drag out fights, and I knew that.

So I tried to stay away from there and the kids started getting bigger.

That's when they started fighting.

Just like your stories try to separate them try the truth.

I don't remember.

Mom and Dad fighting.

When Jesse and Carl were still home I think the boys were mom favorites.

They fought after the boys left to like the CC Camps.

They didn't go to Navy right away.

But certainly after they went to the camps, then Mom and Dad started fighting an awful lot.

And once the girl started growing up, I think she just got tired taking care of us worrying about it's probably a lot of girls to worry about.

In 1941, Ruth gave birth to her 10th daughter named Doris Evan potential was escalating inside the little house.

Both Ruth and Glenn were often away when they were at home.

Life wasn't peaceful.

We didn't have too many of those happy memories because mom and dad couldn't be in the same room very long without starting a fight.

They threw wooden each other did dodgy Galloway.

Sometimes we'd have to try to keep the little ones out away from getting hit.

No see would threaten the killing.

And he'd get the gun and give it to her.

One time dad ended up taking the gun and hitting mom and knocking her out.

Well, she just didn't care what she did.

I mean she didn't old hot water across the room or anything else.

Mom had a very violent temper.

I would think it was probably they were both just frustrated because there was never enough money and dad started cheating on her.

She was a woman that we knew and visited and everything all the time couple of years ago I seen the picture of him standing with his woman and I matched them up turned.

She had coats and hats and shoes and socks and For all her kids because we were over there and she was showing them to us moms have a word she gal and she's Oh, I got them from Montgomery Ward.

So Mama when I went up there we're going to get a catalog she wanted to order on kin Wagner she's well there's already a big order here for Glen Wagner.

Picked up by Wagner today he bought all them coach and had some socks and shoes and offer her girls club problems or something.

Even though their marriage had deteriorated.

In 1941 Ruth Wagoner became pregnant with her 13th child.

She was few months pregnant.

Well, mom and dad didn't want to stay together.

So they he went down and got a willow stick and sharpened it really close and he wrote her wounds and killed the baby.

Carl got all of us girls in the car took us for a ride and while we were gone, she delivered the baby.

They took my attendee box to us but the baby and in the Hebrew to dine the pastor.

The name happened to be avoided.

On March 27 1942, as the family made the 15 mile drive to Charleston, Illinois, the oldest sisters suspected their parents were getting a divorce.

Oh, they told us we were going to court we thought they were going for a divorce.

We just thought these guys were there.

Give mom and dad just howling somewhere.

Just glad to be going I don't remember going to the courthouse.

I don't remember leaving the clear get up help dress kids.

You know the smaller kids they set all up to give this away.

Just turn for that day.

I have no memory of the day at the courthouse in 1942.

I was two years old.

We went to courthouse in one car and dad drove the car and mom was in the car.

All of us girls was in the boys they were in the Navy.

And they don't remember that but I don't know why they not remember that because exactly what happened.

As the Wagner family entered the Coles County Courthouse that day, they met Mrs. Alice Caitlin Katyn was a state social worker who was no stranger to the girls.

She had visited the Wagner house in paradise on several occasions.

On her last visit, both Ruth and Glen were gone.

But Jenny was at home watching her sisters.

I asked Chris What are you gonna do?

What are you gonna do you come keep coming out of the house.

I said, where do you expect us to be gone?

Or what?

Should you No, no, she said that.

You know, you kids, you don't have clothes.

I said we've got clothes.

Where we live, we don't need any clothes, my jersey or buy seasons anyway.

If she's not in Hell, I'm not worried about going there.

But Mrs. Payton had something to back up her evidence.

She produced a petition signed by many of the Wagoner's neighbors, declaring the family should be dissolved.

names on the petition with a very neighbors whose children played every day with the girls.

I know there were a few neighbors that somebody had gotten in touch with and they had talked about the children going to school not having the proper clothing on not having not eating properly to go to school.

I think a lot of people just didn't think that mom and dad was taking good care of us or something.

I remember going to court that day.

And we didn't know why we were born.

We've never been to a place like that before that we were in the court hallway.

When the people started looking at us it kind of scared a little bit because they were pointing and I heard some of them say something they wanted this one or they wondered that when they were picking out the kids when there was dancing out there.

Now I went that and I went that one and I don't mind I should back like they're gonna sell cat.

There was a lot of people there in the courthouse.

We heard years later from a guy that said he was in the courthouse.

And he says we often wondered what happened to all the kids.

Mother used to talk mostly about the day that she remembered courthouse was singing, you're my sunshine, and she said she's ever been herded in like cattle and heard about like cattle.

In court, Alice Katyn stated her evidence as to why she thought the girl should be taken from their parents.

She painted a sad picture of life for the girls in paradise.

She claimed that children were without proper clothes, and that the younger girls showed signs of impetigo last time she came out kids just been eating jelly and bread.

And she said it was so As I said, it's not sores is jelly.

They were just eating jelly and bread.

And we went to court the next week.

And she told that in the court the girls had big sores on their faces row and my mom said to him, Where where's the sewers now?

The state declared the girls destitute, homeless and abandoned.

The court also charged that Ruth and Glen were unfit and improper guardians.

The children were to be placed in the care of social worker, Mrs. Alice Katyn.

Hold it took all of us into the one room and talk to us first.

And then we thought everything was settled.

And we went back out not knowing exactly what they were going to do with this.

And then they called me back into the room.

And I went in there and they said, We understand that you're pregnant either if you're pregnant, nice that I'm not pregnant.

They made Jenny BD me, all three had to take a test.

When the girls came out of the courtroom, they were asked to stand on the front steps to pose for a picture I think the picture speaks for itself.

I don't think there was a dry eye in the place because I knew that at that time that they had taken us from mom and dad, and they knew that.

And I think we all suspected that we weren't going to be seeing them for a while.

We didn't know about that picture.

I know that somebody took it, but we didn't know about it.

They just asked us to stand there and sing.

And I didn't know they took a picture but somebody did.

When I look at that picture, I see sheer sadness and feeling of something going on but not really understanding what I guess I was was a fighter and I get mad easy if it was my natural personality.

But I don't remember that day that much.

Searching my mind now No.

It's it's just not my mind.

But some guy came up and he wanted to take our picture.

And we never really ever know who he was.

So I carried doors and Doughboys on Rhonda Audrey.

I do remember going over on the opposite side of the courthouse scene.

We were all dressed had ribbons in her hair and this guy took our pictures.

I didn't see that picture.

Tell Doris, my youngest sister Doris was moving and one of her kids dropped a picture and this negative fell out of the bag and she looked at it and she saw that she had made seen it was us and she gave it and then she gave it to HFM eight by 10 picture.

The picture captured the last time the Waggoner sisters would all be together for over 30 years.

They come out don't Mom, we want to talk to the kids.

Mom said Well, can I go?

They said no.

We bring them back.

We knew something was wrong.

When they tried to start taking kids.

Mom and dad work there was just as kids there.

So then Mr. Shepherd took Doris and was called to Audrey and Audrey kicked her so hard in the stomach because we were holding on for dear life.

But more they had a full amount of armed screaming to take him around.

be fine.

Just give him up and when they left right shortly after that didn't say goodbye or anything really was hard, very hard to give visit.

I remember my sister Dolores saying that they told her.

They took her from the courthouse in a car and let her off at these people's house and they said now there's no point you crying because nothing's going to change and forget about your family because they're gone.

We separated.

There was not one of us that got to go back to house get anything if we'd had anything there.

I don't remember having too much.

We just all of us just left everything there.

We didn't take nothing.

When they left the courthouse in March of 1942.

Dodo and Jenny went to live with two prominent families in Mattoon.

doto was taken in by the MK clinics.

Her new job was to care for Mr. McLintock elderly mother and she had this big guard or thing here on her neck.

And that's what they want me far was to sit with her.

But I've never seen anything like that my life have scared me to death.

Jenny B became a nanny to the young sons of Dr. auster Hagen did I love the little boys but I Why should I have to take care of somebody else's kids when I couldn't take care of my own sisters Girls wondered where their sisters and their parents were.

Finally after a few weeks, Glen Waggoner showed up at the doctor's house.

She made me take the garbage out while dad was there, and he's just been there a few minutes.

So I'll take it out after my dad leaves.

She's you'll check it out now.

And she made him leave.

When I come back in, he's gone.

Glen also tried to visit dojo, but they told him not to come anymore.

They didn't want him come in there.

So he never came any more than and I never saw Dad then until, until we finally got away from that to completely Dodo.

Remember the name of the family where Jenny had gone to live?

And she called her there.

I said something about your journey there.

And he said, Oh, you mean mommy, and Jenny came with the phone.

And then we made plans to meet because every afternoon Mrs.

Mechanic took me to the movie house and let me off for two hours.

But then Jenny would borrow a bike from people that she stayed with, and she come pick me up and we go, we finally found BD.

Then, Jenny and dodo found out that BT was also living in Matu beadings foster family owned the local skating rink.

Jenny and dodo went there to find her.

And she had her skates on almost broke her neck getting downstairs from when when I seen her she was standing up against the banner strips, there's I hollered at her.

I was standing at the top of the stairs, and I saw them but it was just, I just ran down and I just I it was just a very emotional moment for me, because I knew I was kind of sitting back and I wasn't sure I was going to do it.

After leaving the courthouse in March of 1944, of the younger Waggoner, girls were lost.

For the first time they did not have their parents or their older sisters to look out for them.

As they were taken away, they had no idea where they were going.

Phyllis and Irma got into a car with Mrs. Katyn and began the longest drive of their lives.

They were taken 40 miles away to the Cunningham children's home in Urbana, Illinois, to big place, and I says I don't want to go here.

I just Just do something about it.

They didn't want to go there.

And Phyllis, they got her at first she was little, and she's begging me to get out because she didn't want to be there alone either.

You know, when they tried to get me out, I wouldn't get out of the car.

I hopped side to side and then over the front, back.

So I finally got out.

It was quite a while months actually before we knew what happened.

The other girls Birdie and Margie had been sent to foster families in Mattoon.

They also wanted what had happened to the others and they dreamed of seeing their sisters again.

Finally, after a few months, they were also sent to the Cunningham home.

When they arrived, they were overjoyed define Phyllis and Irma, and soon they were joined by BT we got to see each other wasn't like almost like being at home.

I think they just put us there originally, because not because we're orphans but because dad mom divorced and he didn't want him to afford all 10 girls to take care of.

I'm sure we didn't rip my father just buying sector napkins.

He had things that we never had at home.

We had a clean bed we had meals on the table and never had a toothbrush before.

We got to take a bath which in the tub.

Jay had never done before.

And we had sinks to Eagle boys ship all the time.

You know, the first time I ever get my own comb your own dresser space, your own clothes.

You were responsible for taking care of all that.

You didn't really want to do that because it was yours.

Typical day at Cunningham was getting up early eating in the dining room all up together.

After school we had our chores to do.

Most of the time I worked in the laundry room are in the kitchen.

It was a good place.

I learned a lot at Cunningham I did.

Well taught us how to take care of ourselves to take care of our clothes to clean.

You get along with other people to respect other people and I think it's always carry do with all of us.

We learned to make the bed and make it the right way.

If you didn't make it the right way you need to do this again.

They tore it up but They did several times on me.

And I had to remake it and remake it remake until they did it right.

And but you learn to do it right.

I was proud of everything I learned there.

My mother spoke once about being adopted, they're often offered to adopt, but she won't leave because that's what her sisters were at.

She wanted to stay right there with her sisters.

She loved cutting him trouble, Tom, that was her probably the most secure place she ever was.

I think my mom would have probably said that Cunningham children's home was one of the most important things that happened during her life.

She just really felt that she went away from there a better person.

And she she never felt bad about having been there.

Glen Waggoner was an occasional visitor at the Cunningham home.

One day he picked up the girls and took them out to dinner.

Before he brought them back, he surprised them with new clothes and a box of cherry chocolates.

He also had this picture taken.

That was only time we remember buying any clothes.

But that was also the last time we seen him.

He didn't come back.

Not very many times to become a mom.

A lot of times she would try to come down but she'd always hitchhike and would get there after hours.

A lot of times they wouldn't let her see his mom used to come to the home he used to make.

I think that if she had a chance she would have taken us kids because she didn't really want to.

I was staying with my grandparents.

They brought me to the court that day.

And then I left with them.

I remember beer and I sitting there with our Nissan booster Chan's singing.

That's really the only thing I do remember, I have no memory of the day at the courthouse in 1942.

I was two years old.

But my mother told me on that March day in 1942 Doris was only two years old when she left the courthouse to live with Amanda and Dale Replogle.

The Reef logos owned a skating rink and a restaurant in Charleston.

I think I had a very happy childhood.

It was interesting.

Because we had the skating rink every night I saw new people I saw familiar people.

It took doors a while to get used to her new family.

But the Replogle surrounded her with love.

Doris had no memory of life at the little house at Paradise.

But the real Global's did not hide the fact that she was adopted.

However, they did keep Doris from having much contact with the Wagoner's.

My natural mother Ruth had let my parents know that she was trying to get all the family back together.

We would hear rumors of this when I started school right from the beginning.

Every year, I would be reminded you do not see anybody that comes to the school alone.

And they would tell my teachers that too.

And you do not get in the car if anyone comes and ask you to get in the car.

My mother I think was really afraid that they would take me and I think for very good reason.

Because I don't think my natural mother Ruth, played by the rules.

Even though Amanda Replogle worried about Doris being taken by the rest of her family.

She always let Doris play with Audrey mother would often say she felt sorry for Audrey.

So I grew up feeling that Audrey probably didn't have the happy, welcoming, loving home that I did.

children at school would comment on how much the girls resemble each other.

But Doris didn't know Audrey was really her sister.

One afternoon as the two little girls played Audrey let her jealousy get the best of her.

When I said hey, you're my sister, and she didn't believe me.

And I suppose we are sister Don't you think we looked a lot and she left crying.

It was not a good experience.

It frightened me.

And I ran almost all the way home which was probably close to two miles.

And then our we just didn't see each other much.

I barely remember going to my new home.

And of course I cried.

Most of the nights I saw strange to me.

And there was a man in the house and I wasn't used to man Minnie Mouse.

JESCO was a man who had always wanted a child.

He had been married before even losing a wife and baby in childbirth.

He was gentle patient.

He worked already we just a gentle soul from a gentle place.

But Lata Bell was the opposite of her husband.

She had not planned on being a mother She just didn't like me very well, as I grew up and had my own children.

She never saw any of them.

She didn't want to see him.

So she just didn't like children and I just I guess as a child, I despised her.

But I always did what she told me.

And in school, I tried to really excel hoping that it would make her feel good that I was a good student.

Audrey worked hard to please Mrs. Cole, but their relationship wasn't easy.

To Audrey the most horrendous thing her adopted mother did was cheat on her husband.

She was the wife and the mother during the day.

And she was the butterfly at night, go to bed.

Audrey increasingly relied on her adoptive father.

Another person in her life was her sister Vera.

After that day at the courthouse, Vera had gone to live with grandma and grandpa Colin had a hard time really saying yes to my past, with living with grandma until I got older and really appreciate elders and and the gift that they gave me.

Vera lived with her grandparents in a modest home in Mattoon.

her surroundings inspire jealousy for her sisters of the Cunningham home.

They had a better they only have Dolman bed and they had big land to run around.

And her young character.

Oh, I love my grandma.

But you know she was old.

By her I want to live with them.

But Vera sisters were also jealous of her.

While they had been set to live with strangers.

She got to remain with family.

But when I hear them introduce me, this is the one that lived with grandma.

This is the one that will grab, I think I think they resented that, you know, and I wouldn't blame them.

As the years passed Bureau found comfort in the familiar faces of her grandparents.

The sister she saw most often was Audrey.

But Audrey was often alone.

Sometimes her adopted mother would take her to a neighboring town to visit an aunt and uncle.

The ladies would go out shopping and leave Audrey behind with her uncle.

She was free to play anywhere in the house, except the attic.

mother always told me Don't ever open that door there was I wanted to see what was in that door.

And one day I was kind of messing around with the doorknob and rocketing around this and that and Jerden.

And he asked me says do you want to see what's behind the door or Yeah, we went upstairs and and that was the start of something that that's very hard to talk about.

up in the attic, Audrey saw the most beautiful Shirley Temple doll she had ever seen.

She desperately wanted it.

Her uncle said she could have the doll if she went along with a game that he wanted to play.

At first I didn't even realize was happening.

I was like, Whoa, did you show me so much attention.

It was almost like this was a special kind of love at first, you know?

But it made you feel uncomfortable made even a child feel uncomfortable.

And I felt uncomfortable.

And I knew that.

And especially when he said that this was our secret the sexual abuse went on for months.

At seven years old Audrey was confused and angry as her uncle kept promising her the Shirley Temple doll every time he promised me the doll and then I never got it.

And I just thought I was going to get from that day on.

Audrey waited for Mrs. Cole outside.

Even in rain and snow she would never stay inside the house alone with her uncle.

I had told my foster mother but she called me a liar.

And I hated that man Ford.

In 1942, one month after being separated at the courthouse, and Jenny and dodo found each other again and they did not want to be apart.

They had left their foster homes taking nothing but their original clothes.

Mrs. Katyn found them housing and employment at a local nursing home.

After their first month the girls made $20 Then Mrs. Katyn surprised them and then she said Okay girls do you now you can go back to your mom.

That was how that was just how fast it will happen.

We went and bought us a dress and shoes and nylons which we never had a pair and we get all dressed up, got us a ticket to railroad station and notified mom coming in she managed at the train station Chicago.

16 year old Jenny and 15 year old dodo moved to Chicago and moved in with their mother.

As the war raged overseas there was work to be found in Chicago's factories.

The girls were hopeful but when they arrived, they found Ruth was a different woman.

She had been away from us long enough that she didn't understand us either.

See, she and we got into her way with her man.

She was a different kind of man.

And we've gotten her way and everything so it was a lot of problems.

Question very happy when I went to frat because she had a boyfriend and I didn't like him.

And it'll probably tell you more about him get his arm behind me.

And I backed her real hard against the wall broke his wristwatch that made him leave me alone.

Then one time, though, he came up and he wanted to come into your apartment, but mom and Jenny were working that night.

But I put the chain across he couldn't get in.

But Mama giving him the key number home that I ever hear it.

She was so mad at me because I wouldn't let him in.

Because it was hilarious.

always something going on.

Jenny left Chicago and moved to New York to help her brother Carl's wife who was expecting her first child.

But soon another sister joined dodo in Chicago.

Beatty came north on the train and moved into the small apartment was terrible.

You never know when she was going to fly off the handle and hit your best friend.

She'd hurt baby.

dad wasn't around.

So I guess she just took her anger out on me and video all the time.

After the family was dissolved, Glen Waggoner also moved to Chicago.

And so whenever mom would get mad at us to just say, just pack your clothes and go to your dad.

Soon his dad would say, Well, girls, what do you want to do?

And I said, Well, we can I can go to school or more I say mindset and get me a waitress job.

And we get us a job and then Mom would call.

You get those girls back over her own sin the police.

So that is it.

Well, I'll take her on, or go back with your mom.

So that's why it was back and forth, back and forth.

She would get mad.

I mean really mad at him.

She was even threatened, I guess kill him at one time when are threatened to kill herself.

And where she's gonna jump out a window or something.

I wasn't there when that happened.

But I heard dodo dodo finally called her bluff because she didn't jump out the window.

But one time Ruth went through with her threat, that she locked herself in the bathroom and drink a can of Lysol.

And they had to break the door down to get in there and go to the hospital.

She was unhappy and but she never talked about the kids.

You know, he thought she mentioned something about the kids or talked about that she never did.

The girls hope that things would change when Ruth announced she was getting married.

He treated us all right.

He did not treat mama right.

He'd beat the heck out of her all the time.

And he worked at a brewery.

I think he drank half of it.

But anyway, he he would get drunk and they would fight a lot.

Now that Ruth was remarried, she wanted her daughters back in 1945.

After their eighth grade graduation, Margie and Irma came to Chicago for a two week visit.

She would not let them return.

And we thought oh boy, the police are going to pick us up at any time.

You know we're scared to death.

But they never did.

But it was it was a mistake to she should have left the girls in the home until they were time for them to come out.

The older Waggoner sisters were teenagers as World War Two came to a close.

Soon Chicago was full of young eligible men back from the war looking for a bride.

At age 18, Jenny was the first to marry.

She was soon followed by dodo and BD.

As they moved out and started their own families.

More of the younger sisters came to Chicago to live with Ruth.

The younger girls quickly realized that reuniting with their mother was not going to be the happy ending they had hoped for.

You couldn't live with a very long, I started recognizing the signs that she was getting upset.

And I just I'd move on.

I'm just saying my impression, or the way that she treated is after Pamela children's home.

It was called mom wanted to not do anything with the kids.

But Jenny and dodo always took a stand.

never said anything.

Never.

They just took a stand like we were supposed to be there and and they would send us to school and everything you know.

The girls bounced back and forth between their moms, dads and sisters houses.

They were also constantly changing schools.

Erma who was in high school, hated it.

She started skipping class hiding her books and sitting in the park.

One afternoon she was approached by a very nice lady who started a conversation.

The woman turned out to be a truant officer.

Again, the entire family went to court to decide if the sister should be taken away a second time.

We all went to court.

So we were sitting there when the judge came in.

vs a woman he said why we got this family here And yes mom are all these children your issues?

Yes are all mine.

And he said what the heck's wrong with them today and what their sister's the judge and you.

I want to tell you Don't ever bring his family and accordion.

They been to court once and I don't want to ever see distracted again.

And then we went out outside the courthouse and got on the street car mom and Paul, her new husband at that time, went one direction and men and all the kids.

We went the other way took the kids to the home with us.

I don't know why they all went with the sisters.

Soon after regaining custody of six of her children.

Ruth pack them up again to start a new life in Arkansas.

She and her husband bought a farm in the Ozarks.

Shortly after arriving, Ruth went back to Chicago and left the girls to run the farm.

seemed like they were being left again.

You know, they just said that.

And mom at that time met someone and that's when she got pregnant.

It was a horrible place really.

But we had fun.

It was an adventure for us.

I think I liked Arkansas though.

I my memories.

I liked it down there was very different.

We tried to plow it up with one horse and a plow, you know, pull behind the horse.

We tried.

We did pretty good considering we were young kids yet, but they're just too many rocks.

And instead of stopping to pick all the rocks up after a while we just started going around him so the rows were a little like this.

Without any knowledge of farming or even the right tools the girls tried to make do in their new home.

But mom did not stay there.

She would came back to Chicago, she said to work.

As the situation got worse in Arkansas, Ruth decided she couldn't afford to keep all the girls there any longer.

In July of 1947.

She sold the farm our animals lost her tail off, you know, the cows and then horses and then pigs and every everything kind of just died or something when the sisters left Arkansas.

Margie was 16 years old and five months pregnant.

Has her due date approached her sister birdie nursed her.

In September she gave birth to a son she named Billy but Ruth had a plan for the baby.

I remember mom saying take Margie Gunda 22nd Street Tegrity movie or paper shopping.

The woman that was going to adopt the new boy came in from Texas.

And I don't want to hear when they get the baby because Mrs. Holmes said that if Mary cried I don't think I clicked with that baby farmer.

It was just devastating to me.

I had gotten just as close as Mary that had to the hardest.

Thanks, man.

It just had to.

And she was very adamant about the fact that her mom made her do this.

I think that was a real issue between my mom.

And I just I always wanted to have it offered and asked her why did she the way she felt about her kids being taken away that she would do the same thing to America.

As Audrey became a teenager in Charleston, Illinois, she was living a completely different life than her sisters.

When she was 13.

Mr. Cole passed away and Mrs. Cole pulled even farther away from her adopted daughter.

She gave Audrey plenty of money but never gave her love.

Always having money in my pocket.

Always having a credit card for when to buy clothes or those things.

I had plenty.

Adri grew into a beautiful young lady.

Since she couldn't get attention at home.

She looked forward elsewhere.

She had no problem finding.

Audrey was a pretty girl and the boys liked her and she would go to the fair, she would go there all day long.

She always had plenty of money.

And about that time she called Nazmi ago a couple times, and I did and I don't know that my mother knew that.

But I'd meet her there.

And all the boys of course bought us all these treats.

Took us on all the rides and I thought that was just exotic.

I love that.

When she was 14, Audrey was often sick at school.

Her suspicious school counselors requested she have a physical.

So they said Mr.

Doctor, we would like this, but you need to add this.

Okay, sure.

Well, he told me I was going to have a baby out.

To be very honest.

I really did not.

My foster mother always told me she can kiss a boy they'd be so I thought the kissing men and I didn't even win lotto Bill Cole found out about the pregnancy.

She had her adoption and no.

Audrey got married and moved in with her husband's family.

My boyfriend knew when I was 14, he was 17.

Just two years later, Audrey was divorced with two small children.

Once again, she was alone.

Finally, one day I said, This is it.

I'm taking Megan baggage and going.

Badri lied about her age and got a job downtown.

She moved into a small apartment behind her mother's who was the first time in 10 years she had been around the rest of her family.

I thought they were loud.

And they thought I was snobby.

Mom kind of catered to her.

It was like trying to make up for all the last time that she didn't know or didn't ever.

And she definitely was wonderful favorites.

You've moved up into the day she died.

That was one of her favorites.

feeling like an outsider in her own family.

Audrey focused on her work and her children.

But she did feel that she had one friend in her family.

birdies husband, Bob stop by often to see her, but he was nice to me.

I smoke so he brought me a cigarette lighter when not and then one night he brought his kids and he took me and my kids offer ice cream.

But the sister started talking that something more was going on between Audrey and Bob.

Jenny decided to say something to birdie.

Birdie thought her husband had been working late doing construction.

But Jenny told her that in the evenings he had been meeting up with Audrey at Ruth's apartment.

I remember going over there, I took the bus and I went over there.

And I took my son with me, Jimmy.

And Jimmy said, told me not long ago he said you're always remembered when we walked into grandma's and he said dad was laying on the couch and knew Oh, are you really slept his face?

He called me and said that, that he'd asked her for doors because he wouldn't marry me.

And I said This can't be happening.

I mean, the best of intentions I never ever in October Yes, a birdie I know.

I know how it devastated you.

But trust me there was nothing happened nothing.

And we didn't speak for a while and after a while you just we got past it, I guess.

For 20 years while the girls moved from foster home to orphanage two back to their parents.

Their older brothers Carl and Jesse are removed from the turmoil.

They had left their 10 sisters to go to the Civilian Conservation Corps before the family was dissolved.

Then during the war, they served in the Navy.

Jesse, Carl Bozeman, the neighbor when the family separated, and it just broke, it just they were just really saddened about it and Jesse, he just would not even come home.

Jesse and Carl only learned the family's breakup when they returned on leave.

They returned to paradise and found the little house was empty.

In 1958, Brother Jesse came back to Illinois after serving 18 years in the Navy.

The Waggoner girls decided to welcome him with a celebration.

But when he came home, then we had a little picnic backyard.

And he said, you know, we really should have a picnic every year.

Because he said, that's the only way we're all going to see each other once a year if it's just once a year, though when we first started we used to just get together and have a good time and then that was usually about 50 to 60 hours.

And then as family grew and fringe grown, everybody start bringing their friend with them and and they sort of got married two or three times and most of their husbands come back to the reunion I said my gosh can't get rid of Divorce.

But for many years there was a void in the celebration.

Doors the baby sister was not there the Waggoner girls never forgot about their youngest sister, Jenny even named her oldest daughter, Doris in her honor.

It was always the goal of the sisters to bring her back.

It was the only way they would feel complete.

I can remember being very tense and nervous and somewhat frightened.

Maybe when I saw that, that was not a comfortable situation for me ever.

And that's why I think I didn't really get to know any of them until I was in my late 30s had my family and was a mature woman before I was really comfortable with seeing.

In 1974 The girls were planning a 25th wedding anniversary in Chicago for Ruth and her third husband Marvin Roberts.

The sisters found out that Doris was living in the suburb of Glen Ellyn.

They found her phone number and gave her a call.

So I said okay, we'll go remember my oldest son said it was like walking into a room full of me every year are anxious to do the dance.

Now we're the next generation dancers to go for and eventually we'll have the third generation doing it for I did for a long time felt you know, that would never get back together and we'd never be the same.

But we did.

We fought to get it that way.

They definitely made it happen.

Those women made that closeness and being a part of one another's lives.

They made that happen.

What happened?

The breakup, the lice was never really discussed with her.

I understand.

When mom after all this kids were taken.

I'm sure.

When she came to Chicago.

She must have been thought like a bird out of a cage.

She didn't have to drudgery all the kids are now some of the kids think that mom and dad both was aware of it.

But I I think my dad was aware of it.

But I never can ever believe that my mother was involved in that ever.

I always blamed mom because she just then couldn't even come in the driveway walk down the driveway if she wasn't already on and starting fight right away.

We always walk on softball ah.

We never want to say the wrong thing.

Because she did have a bad temper.

Well, we did ask lots of questions we did.

But we also know that mom was at an end stage in her life and everything else she felt that everyone was against her.

She held on to the hurt that she had for a very, very long time.

And most of us really did get tired of hearing it.

Let it go Mom let it go and never really got over it.

She used to be very depressed, very depressed and then dad him and his merry way and you know they were divorced and he went his merry way and he had a good life.

And here she was struggling all the time.

And, and I and she's kids, I think and where before Ruth died, many of the sisters had made peace with her.

Even Margie.

With the help of her sisters.

Margie was able to shut the door on a horrible chapter in her life.

In December of 1992 birdie told her that she had found her son Billy, his name was Now Steve Holmes.

He was so drugged.

He said so many times.

I wanted to meet or try to trace where my mother was.

Four months later, Ruth passed away at the age of 89.

I know that mom was good to us.

We were young, very good to us.

I always thought she was special.

I think when she died, it allowed them suddenly to be free to examine what had happened to us and how we each made it through and what we done.

I mean there was a lot of coping going on here.

In April of 1993 10, sisters gathered to say goodbye to their mother.

And after the funeral, Audrey had a request.

And I said, yeah, now that that mom is gone, I said, I'd really like to go back to Charleston.

And have the picture made exactly as it wasn't 42 it was really nice for us to go back there with first time we were all crying.

But this time, I think we were all smiling.

It was a sad day, but I think we just wanted to be glad together again.

We felt like we wanted to take the picture and know that it was a full circle.

I was so happy that we were redoing that picture.

And all of it welled up inside of me that day, and I just cried and cried happiness that we will find all together.

This program was made possible in part by a grant from the Illinois Humanities Council, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Illinois General Assembly, and the friends of WILL