Out East of Aline: An Adoption Memoir

By Rex L. Wilson

A valiant little boy, orphaned at four and adopted at five, struggles to be accepted as a normal kid in a rural Oklahoma community during the 1930s. This is a community where everyone knows evrybody... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0964168847
• ISBN13: 9780964168848
• Release Date: November 2000
• Publisher: Uncommon Buffalo Pr
• Length: 381 Pages
• Weight: 1.52 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.8" x 1.0" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

Written from a child's point of view

Out East Of Aline: An Adoption Memoir is more than a biography. Author and retired archaeologist Rex L. Wilson writes from a child's point of view, remembering his own abandonment at an orphanage at the tender age of four and a half years. He was adopted by an Oklahoma farming couple a year later. Thus began his journey into the strange ways of his new home, the heartbreak of learning that his biological mother would never claim him, the unease of living in a community where adopted children were mistrusted as reform school candidates (at best), and finally, gradual acceptance into his new way of life. Out East Of Aline is not only about adoption issues; ultimately a tale of perseverance, hope, and the joys of living. Recommended.

Vivid Memories

Rex Wilson always knew he had two identities that never quite merged into one. He remembered his birth name, his father's death in 1930 when he was four, and his mother leaving him and his siblings in the Oklahoma State Home for White Children soon thereafter. This was not a particularly cruel or neglectful institution by the standards of that time and place, but it had all the usual institutional faults and it left scars. The next year he was adopted by the Wilsons, who wrested a living from the sandy soil east of Aline, Oklahoma, and had no children of their own. They were well-meaning and expressed love as well as they knew how, but the boy to whom they gave a new name was never quite secure.Despite this he was a lively and intelligent boy who learned much from the family farm and Round Grove School, which had a single teacher and up to forty pupils from first through eighth grades. One of his teachers recognized his unusual qualities, double-promoted him and taught him the value of co-operation in basketball and with an ingenious scheme to get out-of-date mail order catalogues for use in the school's outdoor privies. Daily life in the days before rural electrification is described in great and accurate detail. He also lovingly describes shopping visits to nearby towns and a trip to Arizona that awakens what will become his lifelong interest in archaeology. He catches the exact speech patterns of that time and place with the deadpan humor charcteristic of the region, never once abandoning the viewpoint of the boy he once was. At the end of the book he has graduated eighth grade and is ready to face a wider world.

A Second-Generation Perspective

The title of the book was immediately appealing to me, having spent some years both as a child and as a young adult in central Oklahoma. Additionally, having family members from that part of the country, and from that generation, I wanted to learn more about the environment that shaped their values and directed their lives. Being a member of the postwar generation, I could not know what it was like to be born during the Great Depression. This book not only educated me on this subject beyond my expectations, but I found it to be extremely entertaining as well, and very hard to put down. A thoroughly enjoyable read!

Concerning OUT EAST OF ALINE

"Out East of Aline" took me by surprise. It Gripped me so, that I dreaded turning the page, where it might become just another book. In mid-book I realized that the next page was just as interesting as the last. Aline is in the county I grew up in. The author captured, through the eye of a child, the essence of the times, the landscape, the culture, and the people with uncanny accuracy.If a book ever screamed for a sequel, this it it. I'm wondering about the teen years, the war years; the educational and spiritual development and family growth; all briefly mentioned in the Epilogue...

Golden Threads of History

Out East of Aline is one of those essential works that form the threads of a greater tapestry of our history. Written with a true voice, it is a poignant personal glimpse through the eyes of a youth, adopted into a loving and hard-working, yet rigid, family. The 1930s come alive in Wilson's memoir when he speaks of the simple things that made life exciting and, sometimes, disappointing. This is superb social history written and edited with deft professional hands. This book is one of a series published by the Uncommon Buffalo Press. All the books in the series are beautifully written, well-edited, and typographically pleasing. This book will be enjoyed by everyone from those interested in adoption to those interested in life during the 1930s, to those who know of the importance of local history in the history of our country. Read it. It's a page-turner you won't ant to put down.