“Fostering Family Connections” #157

Christina Baker Kline:

Once the decision was made by an orphanage to put the children on the train, there was no turning back and the parents weren't allowed to take them. The children were told that their pasts began when they got onto the train. They had no parents, they had no families, they had no past. They weren't allowed to think or talk about it. They were told, your life begins now.

Catherine York:

The importance of giving back and doing the right thing and helping others. Whether it's through a bigger picture goal, through food, or by just volunteering my time, those things are important to me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This is Dr. Lisa Belisle and you are listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and podcast show number 157, fostering family connections, airing for the first time on Sunday, September 14, 2014. Families come in many forms. Regardless of how they are created, they have a significant impact on our later lives. Today we speak with Christina Baker Klein, best selling author of the Orphan Train and businesswoman Catherine York. Their family experiences have greatly influenced their work and personal evolution. We hope you enjoy our conversations with Christina and Kathryn. Thank you for joining us. Anybody who listens to the radio show on a regular basis knows what a big reader I am and one of my favorite things to do is to pick up a book, read it, find myself completely engaged, and then get a chance to meet the person who wrote the book that had me spellbound Hours at a Time. Today we have that individual with us today. This is Christina Baker Klein. She is a novelist, nonfiction writer and editor who wrote the number one New York Times bestseller Orphan Train as well as Bird in Hand, the Way Life Should Desire, Lines and Sweetwater. Christina lives with her family in Montclair, New Jersey and spends summers on Mount Desert Island. Thanks so much for coming in and talking with us today.

Christina Baker Kline:

Thank you for having me. It's great to be here.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This book is truly a Great book. I really enjoyed it in part because of the writing. Obviously the writing is great, but also it was such an interesting story. The Orphan Train. Tell people who are listening, who may not have read it before, what this book is about.

Christina Baker Kline:

Yeah, okay. So my novel is about a 91 year old woman who lives on the coast of Maine. She's a wealthy widow in a big old house. And the 17 year old girl who comes into her life, who is a troubled goth, part Penobscot Indian foster kid who's had a really hard time of it, steals a book from the library and has to do community service. So she comes to work for this old woman and her job is to help clean out the attic. And her attitude is that she just wants to get it over with because she thinks they have nothing in common. And it's just this old woman who has a lot of money and really doesn't look anything like her, act anything like her either. And so over the course of the novel, however, as she begins to unpack the boxes, she realizes that this woman has a hidden past as an orphan train rider. And so, not only that, which I'll explain in just a second, but they also come to understand that they have a lot more in common than they ever would have imagined in terms of the kind of childhood that they both share. So through their friendship, they discover things about themselves that they never would have known. And the Orphan Trains are this kind of incredible piece of American history that's been hidden in plain sight. 250,000 children, perhaps more even, were sent from the east coast to the Midwest over 75 years. It was the largest migration of children in our Nation's history from 1854 to 1929. And very few people know about it. And it was a labor program. The children were between the ages of 2 and 14 years old. And they were sent to the Midwest specifically indentured and contracted to work for farmers and other people who chose them randomly. There was no screening process. They were just given to whoever showed up. So they had to line up by height and they stood on platforms and people tested their muscles and their teeth and made them run in place. And it really was, in some ways it resembled a slave auction. The children aged out at 18, but until then they were sort of the property of the people who took them. So it's a sort of chilling and surprising, I think, bit of our own past again, that we don't tend to know much about.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

My children learned about the Orphan Train when we went to Ellis island. And actually your book is referenced when you go to the Ellis Island, I guess, museum. And they were surprised to hear about it too. And the bigger surprise, I think, wasn't that there were orphaned children that were moved across the country, although that is sort of horrifying enough. But also that some of these children weren't orphaned at all. Some of these children were just taken off the streets and I guess called orphans.

Christina Baker Kline:

So the orphan train movement, actually it's a misnomer because only about 30% of them were orphans. The rest were abandoned, they were taken out of homes, they were runaways, and they were actually plucked off the streets. Parents would caution, poor parents would caution their children not to go out after six because they might be picked up by the police and put into an orphanage and taken onto a train. So yes, a lot of them had parents who were alive. And what happened is that the parents, the children were told that their pasts began when they got onto the train. They had no parents, they had no families, they had no past. They weren't allowed to think or talk about it. They were told, your life begins now. So the chaperones, they often were given new names. Their birth certificates were altered, destroyed and locked up and they were allowed no access. Oftentimes even parents would show up on a train station platform and want to either take their children back or give them something that would identify them so that they could find them later, give them a letter or something. I actually went through an archive of those materials at New York Public Library. They were not given to the children, they were taken from them and the parents were turned away. Once the decision was made by an orphanage to put the children on the train, there was no turning back and the parents weren't allowed to take them.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You describe children who were quite young. Some of these kids were actually placed in the care of older children and just sort of sat on the trains and then moved out. And they were separated from all that they had ever known from a very young age.

Christina Baker Kline:

Yeah. So as I mentioned, obviously two year olds aren't going to be working in the fields, right, or in the household, as girls tended to do. But by four, young children were working poor. You have to remember that in the 1850s when this started and actually all the way up through, children were property and poor. Children were labor, pure and simple. Pure children worked, whether it was on a farm or in New York. So the concept was humanitarian. Actually. The man who came up with this was a Methodist minister named Charles Loring Brace. And his idea was, was philanthropic. He wanted to get These poor children off the streets because there was no social mobility, there was no welfare, there was no foster care, there were no child labor laws, no child welfare laws, no protection for the poor, no safety net, and no social programs of any kind. So it was a brutal situation for many, many immigrants. And these children were dying of disease and starvation, exposure. They were going to prison, they were becoming prostitutes. They were headed nowhere good. They were joining gang. And Brace looked around and saw that there were 30,000 children on the streets of New York, literally homeless, living on the streets like India, like what we think of, or Dickensian London we tend to think of. But actually New York was really similar to London in the mid-1900s. And so these children had nowhere to go. The orphanages were overcrowded. When Brace's orphanage, which was called the Children's Aid Society, got too full, they housed children in the jail with prisoners. So you can imagine how advantageous that was. And he had this kind of fresh air fund idea. He thought, let's get the children onto these bucolic farms with sheep dotting the meadow and big red barns and wraparound porches on white farmhouses. He had this sort of idealized view of what it would be like. But he thought, get some healthy fresh air and get them off the streets. Furthermore, he was Methodist and his intention was also. He also had this sort of evangelical bent. He wanted to get these heathen, Jewish, Catholic, non practicing children into good, solid, Protestant, preferably Methodist, homes. So he sent them to the Midwest. And the truth is, I must say that even though many of these children knew that they were labor, they went into homes where they perhaps had rocky transitions eventually, I would say, and the train riders themselves say, and by the way, as I say, out of 250,000 train riders there were, there are now more than 4 million descendants. So there's all this research being done about the train riders now, but they say that they probably ended up better off than they would have if they'd stayed in New York. So even though now we would consider that it's a fairly barbaric idea to send children without any screening and any real oversight onto trains to the Midwest, to random homes, I think ultimately they lived most of them and they eventually found their footing. And the vast majority of train riders not only stayed in the states that they were put into, but they stayed in the small communities that they landed in. And as one train rider said to me, I had been through so much turmoil, I just wanted to stay put.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

The main character, or one of the main characters in the book is actually a modern child who is being taken out of a family situation and put into a different family situation. So there is a parallel there with the woman, the older woman that she meets, that is a train rider.

Christina Baker Kline:

That's right. I work with a lot of foster care organizations now since the book came out and there's a foster child in it. But I also did a lot of research and I have friends who've taken in foster children. And I know that even though actually I did a benefit the other night and a former foster child spoke. He was so amazing and he was about 21. And he came up to me at the end because I spoke as well. And he said the feeling, the situation of the train riders is its own unique thing. But I have to tell you, reading your book, the feelings I had as a foster child are the same. The circumstances are different, but the feelings you have, being displaced, feeling unwanted and unloved and that you don't have a home is exactly the same way it felt to me. So when I wrote the book, I actually wasn't calculated about the connections. I stumbled into their relationship, having these resonances. Instinctively, I felt that having this 91 year old woman, like many train riders, had never told her story, and I didn't think that she would tell it to just anyone. I thought it would have to be someone who was sort of on the social fringes, maybe who wouldn't be asking the normal questions or just politely wanting to know, but instead would have a motivation for asking. And so that's how I came up with the idea of Molly, this character. And there were many other reasons that I chose this, the Penobscot Indian angle and all of that stuff. My mother was very involved with the Wabanaki. She was a state legislator in Maine. I grew up in Maine. So I was drawn to her, I think, unconsciously understanding that there were connections. But as anybody who writes fiction knows, you often don't know why you're writing a story until you're telling it. The writing begets the revelations. It's usually not the other way around that you calculatedly kind of figure out what the elements are and put them into a story. You often have to follow your instinct and trust that you're being led somewhere that will be fruitful. And that's what happened to me in this book. The connections between them only became obvious as I wrote my way into the story.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Here on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and podcast, we've long recognized the link between health and wealth. Here to speak more on the topic is Tom Shepard of Shepherd Financial. Sometimes I meet with married or partnered clients and when we get to talking about their financial lives, a cultural divide

Christina Baker Kline:

bubbles to the surface.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

One person feels one way about their money and the other seems to be on their own financial island with a set of beliefs and rules that have created unnecessary borders and boundaries. It's not an uncommon thing and when I hit those situations, I do my best to help both people understand that neither is 100% right or wrong, that they simply have to take a step back and look at their own financial life in a new light. It is also true in politics and economics. What we need to do is see money as a living thing that can be used to grow our lives together without disagreement or so called border issues. It's a great feeling for me. It's like I'm helping people negotiate peace treaties with their money. Be in touch if you want to know more. Tom at Shepherd Financial Maine will help you evolve with your money.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

as a result of the success of Orphan Train, you're being asked to do many events, lots of community reads and it seems as though this has really touched people in a big way. Why do you think that that's true?

Christina Baker Kline:

I thought about that a lot because this is my fifth novel and honestly I like them all and the other ones have done pretty well, but nothing on the scale of this novel which will soon have sold a million copies. It's a completely different experience and honestly it feels like a fluke to me and I feel both lucky to experience it and a little overwhelmed. Believe me, I've thought about this a lot because when I was writing the book and I, I and my publisher had no idea. In fact I remember at one point they said well, we're not sure that you're going to, you know, after I'd finished it if that you're going to hit the demographic because you've got this odd 17 year old and then this cranky 91 year old and who's going to read about those people we don't know. So it kind of unfolded slowly and in fact, the book has been out for over a year and it climbed the bestseller list slowly. And then it just hung on. So it's been a kind of slow build. I think the truth is that a lot of people are interested in this story about America that they didn't know. I have a lot of men who come to events and write me who say they never have read any of my books and thought that they were women's books and that now with this historical angle, they're interested in it. So there's that aspect. I think a lot of people are wondering how to handle displaced children in our society. There's a lot of talk about the foster care system and how to improve it and make it better. I think there's that part of the story and I also think probably that the connection between generations is something that a lot of people are interested in and thinking about as people live longer. I have a lot of mother and daughter book clubs who come up to me at events. I have grandmothers and granddaughters reading the story together. So there's something too about that connection between these unlikely friends that has, I believe, struck a chord. I'm not sure. Do you have any other thoughts on that? Those are the ones that come to mind for me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I think that you probably have hit it. I mean, when I read this book after I was done with it, I gave it to my 18 year old and I also have a 13 year old daughter and I said, you really need to read this book because there was something about it. I think I felt the same thing and I'm not in a mother daughter book club and she and I don't always read the same books. But there was something about it. I think that the bond between the two women in the book and it was sort of a family bond Even though the 91 year old and the 17 year old weren't actually related.

Christina Baker Kline:

Yeah, exactly. I think I've heard that a lot. A lot of parents say it was so wonderful to talk to my girl or boy or children about what it really was like to be a child in that period because they have no idea. And we, these people who come up to me at readings often say we have a sort of fairly comfortable life and they just didn't know that children have not always lived this way. The idea that children were considered labor and that there was no such thing as childhood is shocking to people, especially, you know, children who have never really Heard about that before. And by children, I mean teens really. I would say 13. I have a number of 13 year olds who have communicated with me who've read the book. I would say most readers start at around 14, it seems. 14, 15, because there are a few scenes in the book that are a little disturbing, although not particularly graphic, I

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

would say you just bought a house in Maine.

Christina Baker Kline:

Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You have roots in Maine. You're friends with Genevieve Morgan, our former co host for the show, and also Melissa Coleman, a former writer for Maine magazine. So the Maine connection for you is strong. Do you think that this in some way contributes to your. Your writing, your passion for writing, your connection to writing, your inspiration?

Christina Baker Kline:

Oh my gosh, no question. Maine is my field, is my sort of homeland. I was. We were a fairly itinerant when I was young. I was born in England. My parents are Southern. They're from North Carolina and Georgia. But when I was six, we moved here and continued to kind of go back and forth to England. I lived there nine years altogether. We lived in the South a few years when I was young. My relatives are all southern, but that's a really long time. So my parents have been here since I was 6. They were at the University of Maine. My mother, as I mentioned, was in the legislature. They retired to Bass Harbor. My mother died a year ago, sadly, really sadly, young, 73, of a stroke. That was unexpected and it was shocking. I have three sisters, one of whom lives in Maine year round. But we all have made that little corner of Mount Desert island home. My parents settled there. One sister lives there year round with her carpenter husband and her four small children. She's a librarian at Bass Harbor Memorial Library. And then my other two sisters and I both live. We live in New York and Washington and I live in Montclair, just outside of New York. But we all have houses within two miles. So we're here as much as we can. And actually I love to be here. I bought a house because I want to be here as much as I can during the year. I have two boys who are now. One's entering college this year and one's a freshman. So they're sort of launching. And then I have a 14 year old who's entering high school. So it's feeling more possible for me to spend more time here. My husband and I both love it a lot. He's from the Midwest, which is how I was inspired to write Orphan Train. His grandfather was a train rider. But this is where we really want to be and where I'm So excited to have a house. I'm really excited.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It's interesting that you're kind of hitting your stride, I guess, even though you. I haven't read your other books, I must admit. I'll go back and read them now, I promise.

Christina Baker Kline:

They're all being re released, good new covers and looking beautiful.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I'm sure they're wonderful and I will read them because I do love to read. But it is interesting that you're hitting your stride, at least from a popularity standpoint, just as you've kind of. You're moving your kids up through the ranks and yet you've been a writer even as you've been a mother all the way through.

Christina Baker Kline:

I've been a working writer almost my entire professional. Well, I've been a working light writer forever. I've always written. I have 10 books. I have five novels and five nonfiction books that I've written or edited. I'm doing an anthology now and I'm writing a new novel that takes place in Maine. I, I have been a working writer like many, many of my friends. And I've done some books have been successes and some have not been so successful. But I've always taught, I've edited. I've found a way to have writing as a career, a vocation and an avocation all the way through. But this is a really different thing, as I've said and now the way the juggling. I'm still juggling as I was before, but the juggling. I'm juggling different things now. I'm juggling how to sort of write my new novel and do appearances and do work for and with the body of my work that's already happened. Instead of scrambling to edit new things to make money and teach to make money. And I love teaching, but I have discovered it's such a cliche but that you can have it all, just not all at the same time, as they say. And I think that's really true for me. The other thing is, I've always said this, but it's, it's great to be a writer because it's, it's not like being a supermodel where you have a shelf life. I mean, I can Write until I'm 100 and so and I hope to, I hope to keep writing forever. It feels like a very, very long distance run. And part of the joy for me of this experience with Orphan Train is that I've had so many varied experiences with my books. And if this had happened to me at the beginning, I just would have no idea what it was like to really persevere when you weren't sure what was going to happen. And now I feel I've got that body of experience behind me. And when I give space talks to write to groups of writers or aspiring writers, I feel I have a lot to share about my own experience. And that is something you gain with age.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Christina, what can we look forward to from you in the future?

Christina Baker Kline:

My next novel is inspired by the painting Christina's World by Andrew Wyeth, and it's actually her story. It's written in the first person and she tells the story of what she's doing in that field and what she's looking at and what it has to do with her very interesting real life story. I've been working with several tour guides at the Wyeth House in Cushing, Maine. I've been reading everything I can get my hands on, and I've discovered that her story, her ancestry, how they got to Cushing and how she ended up there and what her passions were and how they manifested themselves is so interesting that you almost don't need to write a novel about it. But I am. But I am writing a novel, so I'm using as much as I can from her real life.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I look forward to that. And I know that people who are listening also will look forward to it. And also anybody who has not yet read Orphan Train, I highly recommend it. How do people find out about your work, Christina?

Christina Baker Kline:

Well, actually on my website, which isjust my name.com, christinabakerkline.com or my Facebook author page, which is my public page, I have events. And if people want to catch up with me in the summer, I'll be doing some events with Ayelet Waldman, who has a new novel called Love and Treasure in Maine. I'll be doing that. And also on my website, I have a tab called Book Clubs and it has tons of information about the nonfiction aspect of Orphan Train. And I also answer the top 10 questions that people tend to ask.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

We are so pleased that you were able to come into our studio. Talk with us today for people who know the show, you may know that we schedule people far in advance and we actually just accidentally called you up and got you to come in at the last minute. So we're really privileged to have you here. We've been speaking with Christina Baker Klein, novelist, nonfiction writer and editor and author of the number one New York Times bestseller Orphan Train. Thanks so much for coming in.

Christina Baker Kline:

Thank you for having me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

As a physician and small business owner. I rely on Marcie Booth from Booth, Maine to help me with my own business and to help me live my own life fully. Here are a few thoughts from Marcy when asked, most of my clients say the same thing about what keeps them up at night money making. Certain cash flow is there to meet day to day operational needs. Oh my gosh, is payroll going to

Christina Baker Kline:

be able to make it?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

When we dig deeper, we understand that those sleepless nights are symptoms of poor planning and forecasting. And more often than not, the reasons for not doing it are a lack

Catherine York:

of time and a lack of resources.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So here's a suggestion.

Christina Baker Kline:

Instead of living in fear of the numbers and losing sleep over them, make

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

peace with them by paying closer attention to the financials and creating positive cash flow. I'm Marci Booth. Let's talk about the changes you need. Boothmaine.com

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I think we all have had times in our lives where we've spent we've had relationships with people and known them a certain way. We've known them from a business standpoint or we've known them socially. And then we hear more about their stories and it causes us to pause a little bit. And this next individual is pretty great person in and of her own right. And just when you first meet her you will definitely agree. But then when you hear her story, you'll think, wow, there's something really big going on here. And you'll be even more appreciative of what she's managed to do in her life. Catherine York is the co founder of the Gilded Nut Snack Company where she directs growth strategy and investing. She is originally from Presque Isle and Waterville. Thanks for coming in. Thank you for having me, Kathryn. You guys have great snacks. I just want to start with that because you do this really interesting flavors of pistachios, which I love. I can't get enough of them. I eat them probably far too often. Glad to hear that. Yes, I'm sure. And you and John have really done a great job getting the pistachios into stores all over the state of Maine and elsewhere, I'm assuming. Why pistachios?

Catherine York:

Well, they're really John's creation. We lived in the Virgin Islands for He lived there for eight years. Lived there for three and a half. And that's where we met. And his buddies used to take him out on boat trips. And he was always the guy making food because he's an amazing cook. And he'd bring snacks and water. Amazingly, all these guys would get together, and nobody ever had water. So he'd bring water and chicken salad and all kinds of crazy things. And he started making pistachios. He would take these plain pistachios, which he really liked, but he didn't love, and he'd throw them in a bowl and kind of mix them like he does a salad, trying different concoctions and pulling out whole herbs and spices from his pantry. And that's how the Gilded Nut was created. And we moved from the islands to San Francisco for the work that I was doing at the time in solar energy. And he thought, you know, I'm in San Francisco, the foodie town of America. If I don't do this now, I never will. And that's sort of how it started. The way it's structured, we're able to really live anywhere and do it. And so when we made the decision to move back home, for me, after being gone for 20 so years, he was able to pick it up. And so we've had a lot of love from main stores and hotels, including the Camden harbor innovation. And we're in a bunch of luxury hotels, Ritz Carlton's, Mandarin Orientals, et cetera, around the country.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I believe I first started eating your pistachios, maybe at the Kennebunkport Festival last year. That was how I think I was and probably a little before that. But there really is something different about them. You know, the taste combinations, the spices, they definitely feel very lovingly crafted.

Catherine York:

Well, thank you. We actually launched them at the Kennebunkport Festival. John was working really hard with the folks who were crafting the message and the packaging and so forth with the deadline of the Kennebunkport Festival. So that's where they were launched. And the Kennebunkport Collection, hotel collection, KRC Resort collection. There we go. Allowed us to put them in all the rooms. And so all the guests for the festival had a chance to try them. And the flavor combinations of John's. I mean, he literally started with, let me add a little paprika. Let me try smoked paprika and Hungarian paprika. And so he tried different combinations. So aside from sea salt and pepper, they're all unique to his creations.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Why is it called the Gilded Nut

Catherine York:

Pulp and wire around the corner helped us with the name development. And we wanted something that was fun, but we also wanted to demonstrate through a name the fact that we were taking nuts or snacks and other healthy snacks in the future and coating them with different things that would be healthy. And the healthy aspect of it is the most important thing for us. We only use whole ingredients. We never use any preservatives or dextrose, maltodextrin, those crazy ingredients, which many of them are GMO derivatives or come from things like corn or soy, which are big gmo, no nos. So that's a very important facet of the business for us.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Food is important to you. I know that not only was John providing food for your sailing trips, boating trips around the Virgin Islands, but you also were providing food. And food is. The growth of food has become important to you as well. You're investing in a company that's doing some interesting work.

Catherine York:

Absolutely. By 2050, we expect, or I should say other professionals expect, that there will be between 10 and 11 billion people in the world, and 70% of those people will live in urban areas. And so the way we grow food now is unsustainable. The fact that in the wintertime, you and I get our leafy greens from California is a problem because of the carbon footprint, because it's grown to be picked early, it's grown to be shipped, to be bounced around. And so there's really. Even when it's organic, it's not necessarily as healthy as it can be. So after a lot of research, I decided to invest in a company that's out of the Netherlands, or the technology development is out of the Netherlands, to grow leafy greens under LED lights, vertically inside. So we can take modular units and put them into any warehouse in the world, which means we can grow sustainably in urban areas.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And the name of the company that's going to be forthcoming with this soon?

Catherine York:

The name of my company is Constant Harvest, which the brand company here helped me with. And the hope is that I will have the North America license for that technology.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This is exciting work that you're doing and clearly something that you have been very thoughtful about. I guess the word is mindful of the impact that you have, not only in the smaller level of the business, but also in the larger world. How did some of this come from your background? I know that you spent time being raised by a family that really had a dedication to kind of bigger, bigger things. Tell me about that.

Catherine York:

I think part of it first comes from growing up in Aroostook County. I grew up picking potatoes as a young kid. And back then, it doesn't happen anymore. But back then, kids in grade school, junior high school and high school picked potatoes. So I can still feel the dirt under my fingernails and, and remember what that's like helping a community get through a harvest as a young person. So that was part of it. And the other part of it was I, from a very early age, well, I guess I was in eighth grade, spent time in various foster homes and eventually was taken into a long term foster care home by a family which became my family. I mean, they are my family. We never went through a formal adoption process, but. And they are the most giving people I know. I mean, one of the best stories is that when Halloween would come around in our neighborhood, the kids would, you know, toilet paper every house and they would never touch ours. Because my dad was the kind of person that if any of the troubled kids had any issues at home, they would come and spend the night at our house or come for a meal or something like that. So the importance of giving back and doing the right thing and helping others, whether it's through a sort of, you know, bigger picture goal, through food or for. Or by just volunteering my time, those things are important to me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I've noticed in my conversations with you and in my friendship with you that family is a big deal. I mean, we just had a conversation on the sidewalk about all the people who have visited you over the summer in Maine and yet. But you wouldn't have it any other way. This is really important to have your nieces and nephews and all of the people that enrich your life. But you talk about being in foster homes from an early age. So it's also a very purposeful thing that you're doing is surrounding yourself with people that you care about.

Catherine York:

For sure, I think it's something that's evolved. Certainly as a very young kid, I came from a home where there was a lot of chaos. My biological mother, who still lives in Presque Isle, was an immigrant from the Philippines, didn't have a lot of resources, was divorced very early after she came here, had three kids and didn't really know how to make things work for young people. So I think it was really tough for her. And around my junior high school years, I. I was having a lot of trouble in school. I mean, I was getting straight A's and I was an athlete, but I was also causing trouble. I was the class clown and I probably at the time had the most detentions for girls, which at the Time, I'm sure I was very proud of. But that was a reflection of needing attention. So we always see young people who are troubled and people want to be around the kids that are good or speak well or doing well in school. But really the. The kids who need the attention are the ones who are acting up because they're acting up or out because they are not getting the attention they need elsewhere in their lives. Right. So I think that for me was the way I got attention was, you know, going through school and different programs and so forth, trying to get attention. And I later learned that, that I wanted positive attention. And so I really focused on my studies and other things that were more positive. And by being taken in by this family, they helped to impress the importance of that on me and showed me what it was like to have a family. This is a long answer to your question, but.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

But

Catherine York:

that journey was so important for me. Being without a family structure and then having a family structure which is very foreign to me. And even through high school, I was still trying to figure that out like I was with them through high school. But it was weird having structure. It was weird having people who went to my games and who cared and. And it really transformed me as a person, as a young person, without me really even knowing it. So when I went away to college, I'll never forget, I was so excited to be there and be on my own and have this new independence. And so when my parents left, I was excited and so I don't remember crying. And my mother called me several days later and said, you know, I wanted to talk to you because I just want to make sure we're going to hear from you again. I felt like that departure was a little cold and aloof. And I thought, well, wow, this is the warmest I've ever been. Right? And it was that moment for me that I realized that I needed to give more of myself, to not just take the love that they were giving me, but give more of myself. And that process helped transform me in a way that allowed me to have better relationships. Relationships. And that was sort of when I became closer with my aunts and uncles and other folks like that.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It seems as though it probably was a survival mechanism that you had, I guess, embraced as you were going through these chaotic situations that, you know, you needed to be self protective. You didn't necessarily want to reach out or be as affectionate, because then maybe you just kind of get it taken away as suddenly. As wonderful as your foster family was, I mean, how could you Know any other way of existing?

Catherine York:

Yeah, it was absolutely a defense mechanism, as was acting out and the other things that I was getting involved in. When you go through foster care and you don't know where you're going to be the next day, you don't want to form relationships. And in fact, those weren't great experiences as much as that. The Maine state foster system allowed me to meet my eventual family and allowed me to have the life that I now have. There were experiences along the way that weren't positive. I had to become detached and aloof so that I could protect my state of mind and my emotions and so forth. And so that's why I say when I finally were with them and met them, I felt like I was the warmest person ever. But that wasn't necessarily the case from their perspective. So I had to get to an even point at some point.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

As the mother of three kids, two of whom are older, I actually can kind of relate to your. To the woman who became your adopted, unofficially adopted mom, because I think sometimes even teenagers who have the most ideal situations, they just do what teenagers do, and they're like, okay, see you.

Christina Baker Kline:

Bye.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Bye. But I agree with you that there is some needing to come back around and especially in situations like yours, and understand sort of how we impact those people around us. I think when you're younger, all you ever think about is how you are impacted by what's going on. As you get older, you realize, oh, I actually have some. There's something that I am doing that contributes to whatever's going on in the world. So I think for you, it's really interesting because you had a sort of semi typical later teen age, but you were also dealing with some other stuff that you had kind of carried with you for many years.

Catherine York:

Yeah, for sure. And I don't mean to say that the evolution of becoming a better, more connected person to my family was overnight or even at that moment. I think that was a moment of realization. But I still think, you know, in my early 20s, where I was still. I think we're all still discovering ourselves, I was very focused on my career and on success. And I was working in politics at the time, on the presidential election, and I worked at the DNC and doing all these things, and it was about achievement, but it was about achievement for the sake of achievement, to sort of show people that I could do things. There's a great book called Drama of the Gifted Child by Alice Miller, and I read it actually when I was 26, and it was like Wow, a light bulb went off because she talks about that, how you can become a little narcissistic or achievement oriented for the sake of that. And after I read the book, I realized that if I lost all of that, there'd be nothing left. And so I needed to find a way to have more balance in my life. And that was a journey. It didn't even happen right after I read the book. It was a journey of self discovery, of wellness, being healthier, making better decisions about my lifestyle, about my relationships, both family relationships and relationships with men. And a lot of writing. I like to write and that's how I get things out. So I did tons of writing. I've kept a journal since I was three and I just got tons of things on paper. You can go back and read it and go, oh, gosh, really, was I that person at that moment? So I think through that process, through a lot of reading and research and understanding the impact of those things that happen to the little girl, me as a little girl and how it impacts you as an adult person helped me find better balance. It was important to me to do well in work or business, but that didn't have to come at a price of not having strong friendships or relationships or just be, you know, I sort of had become the friend or the girlfriend that everyone wanted as opposed to who I wanted to be. So finding that balance was really tough. But. And it's all, you know, it's a work in progress even today.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, that idea that you would maybe even more than your average individual need to be the person that everybody else wanted to be that you wanted. You had to play roles depending upon whatever given situation you were in, starting from, you know, eighth grade or maybe even earlier, and then finally coming to a place where you're like, all right, who am I? And what does this mean and how do I change things so that my life moves forward in a more authentic way? I think that's something a lot of people don't get to like, who don't, you know, who don't have to do all of the work that you've had to do over the course of your journey.

Catherine York:

I don't even recall who gave me the book, but I had a couple moments that happened to me as a 20ish person. And I had some really good mentors, business or work mentors, who became personal mentors as well, who had really balanced lives. And I think that they started saw some of those things in me and had conversations with me. It's always these touch points in life where you might not realize that something you said or did really can transform a person in that moment. I had those kinds of touch points I think in my 20s, which is what led me to back to my writing, led me to read that book or read some other books and, and to be on this journey. But I also always wanted to be a better person because of my parents, because they set such a wonderful example. Even now, I mean, if my mom has an extra dollar in her pocket, she's not spending it on herself. She's spending it on something for my dad or for her kids or for to come up with a new little project for my nieces and nephews. And that's just they have given everything to so many people and that's so admirable, especially in today's society where it's all about me, me, me and how many more things can I get. And that self discovery I think is because of the example they have set for me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Your father was an educator.

Christina Baker Kline:

Educator.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

He's retired now, I think. And that was an important part of creating some stability for you and having this crossover between your home life and your school life was that you had somebody who was kind of paying attention all the way through. This is, I'm asking, I don't know that you can answer this question, but why do you think he was so drawn to helping kids who needed that extra something? I mean some it would be easy to just say, you know, come to school, I'm doing my job. When you leave, it's not my problem. But this was a person he and his wife, your adoptive parents, who were unofficial foster parent, adoptive parent. This was a choice that they made. This is how they wanted to live their own lives.

Catherine York:

I know for my mom, it comes from her mom. They both come from families that had meager means but always gave back. And so my mom and my aunt. My Aunt Gail are the. Literally, I mean, when people meet them, they're like, oh, my gosh, they're the nicest people I've ever met. You know, soft. A soft touch to every situation. Very thoughtful, super sweet. Sometimes giving too much and, you know, have to step back and say, I gotta take care of myself. But sometimes we have to do that for. For them. So I think that comes from their family. From my dad, you know, he came from a little bit of a larger family. Again, we know of not many means. And, you know, he was the tough kid. Very athletic, but the tough kid. Getting to fights, but still always good athlete, good in school, always did well, but, you know, a typical childhood. And I don't think anybody else in his family became educators, but I think something about his experience as a young person finding himself and the things that sports and education did for him caused him to want to do that for others. And I don't know how much of this, you know, is environmental or, you know, that leads you down this path, but they just have this special place for young people, for kids, even now. I mean, they're both retired and, you know, they spend so much time with my cousin's little babies, which I do, too, but they just. They're really into that childhood development.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It was wonderful to meet your parents last year at the Kenny Bumpport Festival when you were debuting the Gilded Nut products. And it was also wonderful to see how important it was to you that we meet your parents. You know, that you literally walked across the tent and said, I want you to meet my parents. You know, and that is something that you don't always see, that. That kind of closeness and that pride and having that relationship at the same time. You also have a relationship, I think, not quite the same relationship with your biological mother, who still, I believe, lives in the state. I wonder sometimes in situations like this where there's not really. You can't really say, like, somebody's to blame. You'd like to come up with some reason why your life has gone astray, but it's just so complicated. You have to come to a place of just, you know, wherever I am right now, this is where I'm going to be. I wonder if that's A process that you had to go through yourself so that you could be at a place of peace with this family situation.

Catherine York:

Yeah, I think. Well, she does still live in Presque Isle, Maine. We don't really have much contact. I have a younger sister, same mom, so I know what my biological mother is doing more through her because she and I, she lives in Virginia and she and I are in touch and spend holidays together and so forth. I think as a young person, it's normal to blame, you know, it's because of you that this happened. And I did a lot of that, a lot of finger pointing, a lot of I'm cutting you off because you were responsible or by doing nothing, you were even more responsible. And I think during that self discovery period we talked about earlier, I had to think about her life and how she got there as well. And she is from essentially, if you've ever been in the Philippines, it is a third world country by so many definitions. And even though she had some family members who were really close, others were not, I think it was somewhat of a tough family situation for her too. And at the time, that was the early 70s, at the time that she ended up coming over to the US from the Philippines, it was about escaping the situation that was prevalent in the Philippines. The abject poverty, the lack of jobs, the lack of skills training for real jobs and those sorts of things. So really you saw a lot of women, frankly, marry American men or other people in the military from around the world that were stationed in the Philippines during that time, post Vietnam War, who needed to get out, who wanted to get out. So I think her life was all about that. So while I pointed fingers, I had to spend some time thinking about her life and how she got here and then being here and not. I mean, she saw snow for the first time when she came here. So, like, think about that as such a basic thing and how foreign everything else must have been. So I think I had to go through all that and I literally picked up the phone and told her that I forgave her. You know, people always say that forgiveness is lethargic. And I don't know, it was right for me. It doesn't necessarily work for everybody, but it was right for me. And I think it was. I think she had put a lot of the things out of her mind and we didn't need to get into a discussion about, you did this, you did that, didn't you? Now I forgive you. It was more like, you know, there were a lot of things that happened for which I forgive you and that helped bring me a lot of peace. I'm not sure if it did anything for her, but anyway, my relationship with my parents, they are my parents and so there's not a lot of crossover. I don't really see my biological mother. I just hear about her through my sister.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I appreciate your parents giving you the structure that you needed and becoming your parents when they did it obviously meant a great deal in your life. I suspected that they impacted other lives of other children in ways that we can't really know at this point for sure. But how can people find out about Speaking of your success, how can people find out about the Gilded Nut Snack Company?

Catherine York:

We are online www.gildednut g-I l d nut.com and if they're in the Portland area, you can find us at Brown Trading and LaRue Kitchen. If you're in Camden at the Camden Harbor Inn Lilly Lupine and they're in some Kennebunkport stores as well. I don't want to go through the entire list, but we are available locally. But if you have any questions, just go. You can contact us online as well.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And I can attest to the fact that these are very lovingly crafted and delicious. So as you're eating them, you're going to feel the positive energy. It's really something that comes across. Good luck with your future endeavors. I know you're going to be successful.

Catherine York:

Thank you.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Thank you for coming in. We've been talking with Kathryn York, the co founder of the Gilded Nuts Snack Co. And so many more things. I appreciate your being with us today.

Catherine York:

My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You have been listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and podcast show number 157, fostering family connections. Our guests have included Christina Baker Klein and Kathryn York. For more information on our guests and extended interviews, visit drlisabelisle.com the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is downloadable for free on itunes. For a preview of each week's show, sign up for our E Newsletter and like our Dr. Lisa Facebook page, follow me on Twitter as doctor and catch my daily run photos as bountiful one on Instagram. We love to hear from you, so please let us know what you think of the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour. We welcome your suggestions for future shows. Also let our sponsors know that you have heard about them here. We are privileged that they enable us to bring the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour to you each week. This is Dr. Lisa Belisle. I hope that you have enjoyed our Fostering Family Connection show. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your day. May you have a bountiful life.

Christina Baker Kline:

SA.