Customer Reviews

Out East of Aline : An Adoption Memoir

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

I read this book with my book club and was pleasantly surprised by both the high quality of the author's prose and the amazing detail of his memory. Researchers say that strong emotion fixes details of situations in one's head and that was clearly the case for Rex Wilson. His recollections tell the reader not only about his own abandonment, adoption and childhood, but paint a fascinating portrait of life in rural Oklahoma in the Depression years.

I think the editing could have been a little tighter and I would have liked to have seen more photos, but the memoir was great. I'll never look at adoption the same way again.

Not being adopted or knowing anyone who was adopted in my rural community in Oklahoma where I was raised, I did not read OUT EAST OF ALINE for the adoption story but for the portrayal of "life as it was" in northwestern Oklahoma during the 1930's. I was not disappointed! My personal memories (and stories told to me by my parents) and those of the author paralleled each other, yet in a delightfully told, very descriptive manner that made my memories come alive once again. Further, the description of his trip West with his parents, camping along the roadsides, was hilarious! This story demands a sequel as to what happened during his high school and college years that further developed his visions for his future.

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.

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!

"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...

I really loved this book. My mother was born in 1909 in Alva, Oklahoma but the family soon moved to northern California where they stayed, so she didn't have many memories of Oaklahoma.....

This book lovingly and simply describes the place and the era. The author makes it all sound so normal, and of course for him, and his family, it was. I could feel his pain every time he mentioned his adoption and hope that adoptive parents read this and understand how painful it is, or can be, for most adoptive children, almost all of whom feel that they were simply given away. The pain is almost unbearable but can be gotten through as Rex Wilson shows in this charming book. His adoptive parents exist only in his childhood memories and I would love to know them better. What was their history? How did they meet? How long did they try to have children of their own--or did they try? Did they stay on their small farm for very long after he left home?

I am SO CURIOUS to know what his life was like after he left grammar school. He covers it ever so briefly in his Epilogue, but details are just the beginning of a story such as his. Did he ever see his biological, mother or siblings again? Does he know what became of them? How did his adoptive parents, especially his mother who was so good to him, fare after he left home? How about his friends? So many questions.......... It WAS thrilling to see his thank-you to Tam Ford, the teacher he loved so much, in the Acknowledgements, for her help and encouragement during the writing of the book. So obviuosly he kept it touch with her.

But even if we don't get our answers, the author is to be commended for writing such a moving book so filled with history of place and with a little boy's adventures. Thank you to Rex L. Wilson!

I was hoping for a revelation about the state home for orphans. I was surprised that no more was there. I knew Glen Ewing well, for he was my teacher in HS. I was very disappointed to read the language that I seldom if ever heard when I was a child and I am 8 years or so younger than Rex. I, too, grew up in this area of Ok. Also the slams given to the Church of the Nazarene were horrible. I have been in the Nazarene church since the day I was born and the Round Grove church since 1949 and have NEVER seen holy rollers, nor people talking in tongues(Pentacostals) that really belonged to that faith. NOR are they people that do not believe in Drs.!! We have many born again Christians who are also Doctors.

I really enjoyed the book and thought it gave an insightful look into not only the mind of an interesting child, but also the flavor and culture of rural Oklahoma during the depression. I was prepared to have to wade through it but really enjoyed the book.