Open Your Heart at the Museum Gallery

Tom Sawyer lived with Aunt Polly.  The Widow Douglas offered a home to Huckleberry Finn.  Fictional characters – real situations.  In the mid-1800s, there was no official safety net for orphans, like Tom Sawyer, or abused children, like Huck Finn.  Even by the early 1900s things had not changed much.  My own grandfather and his siblings were farmed out to different families when their mother died in 1905.  This was common practice, and siblings often never saw each other ever again.
The first child welfare services were authorized in 1935 under the Social Security Act.  The program has evolved throughout the years in an effort to provide care for children when families are unable or unwilling to do so.  This is not a pleasant thought, but it is the sad reality for thousands of children in Missouri and even here in Hannibal.  There are “Toms” and “Hucks” everywhere, and not just the cute, costumed kind we see during National Tom Sawyer Days.
On Thursday the Mark Twain Museum was honored to open an exhibit sponsored by the Heart Gallery, an organization that spotlights children who can never return to their birth families.  The museum and the Hannibal Arts Council are exhibiting photographs of these adoptable –and adorable – boys and girls.  Professional photographers donated their expertise, and the portraits are stunning.  And as beautiful as the exhibit is, it is also very hard to “enjoy.”  Their eyes say it all.
Each of these children, and many are pictured with siblings, is desperate to be adopted into a loving, “forever” family.  Adoption is an awesome responsibility and not to be considered lightly, but when the right match is made, families are completed, and children are given hope. 
I hope everyone in Hannibal gets out and enjoys the fun and festivities of National Tom Sawyer Days this weekend.  It’s an event we eagerly anticipate each year.  But I also invite you to stop in at the museum or the Hannibal Arts Council to view the portraits of these youngsters who are patiently waiting for a family.  Who knows?  Maybe next summer you’ll be enjoying the 4th of July holidays with the rest of your family.