When I was a child of five or six my father, Christian G. Hohn, made the decision to leave the active ministry in New Ulm, Minnesota, and move with my mother and me to Warrenton, Missouri. He had accepted a job there as executive secretary of Central Wesleyan Orphans Asylum. His principal responsibility was to raise money to complete the second of two cottages, designed to house no more than twenty children, preferably ten or twelve. Each cottage would then have a mother and father, but share playgrounds, medical services, and supervision. He had visited and been impressed by a Jewish orphange with this design.

When the second cottage in Warrenton was completed no one could be found to take over the parenting. Instead of ten to twelve children, this cottage was now redesigned to take forty children. The boys, twenty of them, were assigned sleeping room in the basement.There was no money left from the building project to hire a cook or housekeeper.

After some time, I'm also guessing, my mother, warm-hearted, amazingly competent in all things housewifely, must have been unable to withstand the sad and worried look on my father's face.With the promise that this would, indeed, be temporary, accepted that awesome responsibility.

That "temporary job" extended for over two years and during that time, my mother, cooked, cleaned, dried tears, laughed with and, in her own way, disciplined her charges. She saw the "basement boys" off to school and welcomed the children home in the afternoon -- all this by herself! The only help she had was from five or six high school girls. My father was gone most of the time on money raising tours. My mother was rewarded not one cent monetarily, but the children's love and appreciation seemed to be fulfillment enough for her.

After a difficult two years, we moved back to Minnesota. One day, my mother was cleaning with her German housewife vigor. Reaching down into the crevasses of an overstuffed chair with the vacuum cleaner attachment, the rattle of paper stopped her. Out came a crumpled note and on it this inscription: "Dear Mama Hohn, by the time you find this note-you will be gone and far away. But we want you to know that no matter how far away you are, we will NEVER forget you, how kind and loving you were, how much you taught us. We will love you forever." This note was signed by each of the "Orphan Girls".

My mother's tears came from a deep place inside her as she sobbed, "Oh, dear God, how are those girls, and how are the children!" I am concerned about our children in this country, and in the world. Twenty-one percent in the U.S. are living in poverty. Many, many others are neglected and or abused. When I heard Brian Rusche of the Joint Religious Legislative Coalition in Minneapolis speak and use those same words,"How Are the Children", I knew beyond a doubt why I had written my new book, Wild Orphan.