LARGO CANYON SCHOOL:

A School for Heroes

One of my visions is to create a special resource for bereaved children or even adults who were bereaved as children. This image concerns the bereaved child setting out on the archetypal Voyage of the Hero, since in ancient myth, this voyage was the life pattern for orphans. To this end I am bringing together the resources out in cyberspace that concern bereavement and orphans. I will appreciate your comments.

General information about childhood bereavement.

A number of things a parent can do to help their children deal with death.

Sienna Dalton

Review of the social-science literature about adolescent bereavement.

Mediconsult Grief Pages

Girl Talk

Missing Fathers on the Net

When Kids Mourn

Discussing Death with Preschoolers

Mother Loss

Motherless daughters on Mother's Day

Raindrop: Death Education

The Bear Fetish ( Link to Survivors of Homicide, Inc.)

Lynn Davidman explores growing up motherless in American Society

How Adult Attitudes Affect the Grieving Child: class notes from Indiana University

Online grief support groups for adults and children

Movies on the Theme of Childhood Grief

• Corrina, Corrina - a child needs time to recover from mom's death
• Ponette - a child searching after her mother is killed in an accident
• Ordinary People - after his brother drowns, a boy tries to put his life back together
• My Girl - recovery after the death of a best friend
• Sleepless in Seattle - widowed man with young son is looking for a woman in his life

The Bereavement-Hero Cycle

Examples

Bereaved as an Infant (pre-birth to three)

• Thomas Hubbard (only two years old but took card of his baby sister when mom died)
• Mary Shelly (mother died when she was 10 days old)
• Barbara Streisand (father died when when she was 15 months)
• Prophet Mohammed (mother died shortly after birth)
• Johnny Appleseed (mother died when he was 2)
• Isaac Newton (father died before his birth, abandoned by mother, then stepfather died)
• Hortense E. Wilhite (mother died shortly after she was born)
• Edgar Allen Poe (his parents died when he was two)

Bereaved in early Childhood (three to five)

• Blaise Pascal (mother died when he was 3) Another page on Pascal
• Emily Bronte (mother died when she was 3)
• John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (father died when he was 3, mother died when he was 12)
• Ptolemy VI Philometor (father died when he was a young boy)

Bereaved in pre-adolescence (five through ten )

• James Dean (mother died when he was 9)
• Madonna Louise Ciccone (mother died when she was 5)
• Rosie O'Donnell (mother died when she was 10)
• Edvard Munch (mother died when he was 5)
• John Keats (father died when he was 8)
• Mark Leech (mother died when he was 8)
• Eleanor Roosevelt (parents died when she was 7)
• Ralph Waldo Emerson (father died when he was 8)
• Sylvia Plath (father died when she was 8)
• St. Therésè (mother died when she was 5)
• St. Gemma Glagan (mother died when she was 7, father died when she was teenager)
• James Clerk Maxwell (mother died when he was 9)

Bereaved in adolescence (ten through thirteen)

• Abraham Lincoln (mother died when he was 10)
• Rosie O'Donnel (mother died when she was 10)
• Will Rogers (mother died when he was an adolescent)
• Dr. Sam Friedman (father died when he was 10)

Bereaved as a teenager (thirteen though eighteen)

• Mary Leaky (father died when she was 13)
• Dr. Josaphina Magno (mother died when she was 13)
• Saint Colette (parents died when she was 17)
• Aldous Huxley (mother died when he was 14)
• Tigran Vartanovich Petrosian (parents died when he was 16)
• Kweisi Mfume (mother died when he was 16)
• Mahatma Gandhi (father died when he was 16)
• Andre Kertesz (father died when he was 14)
• Adolph Coors (parents died when he was 15)
• Francis Bacon (father died when he was 18)
• Saint Anthony (parents died when he was 18)

COMMERCIALLY AVAILABLE GRIEF RELATED PRODUCTS
ENDORSED BY THE LARGO CANYON SCHOOL

Together We Can Heal. Produced by Steve Barta and Phil Volan. http://www.soucemusic.com/heal.htm This CD has the kind of music I would only expect on the coolest hours of public radio (and I heard Mike Flynn play a song on it on The Folk Sampler!). It's message is one that would be well to get out into the mainstream consciousness. It is sponsored by Pike's Peak Hospice, Inc. Here is my favorite verse from Stories To Be Told:

Everything must die sometime, but just because that's true
Doesn't make things any easier if it's happening to you
But we're all in this together, if you need a hand to hold
And when you're feeling ready, there are stories to be told.

Information about orphanages

The Orphan Project

Richard B. McKenzie's Papers and Work on Orphanages.

• Effects of Institutionalization upon Orphans
• An Orphan on Orphanages: Themes of The Home (Wall Street Journal, November 29, 1994)
• Orphanage Alumni: How They Have Done and How They Evaluate Their Experience
• How Orphans Have Outpaced Other Americans
• RETHINKING ORPHANAGES
• References

Val's Orphanage Legacies and Legends

CPN's Orphan Project Page

Historical Orphanage Information

Illinois Orphan Trains

Iowa Orphan Train Project

Kansas Orphan Trains More Kansas Orphan Trains

Orphan Trains Video: The American Experience

Orphan Train Riders Reunion

Nevada State Orphanage

William Quarrier's Letter

William Blake's Poem about The Chimney Sweep

The Dying Rooms - Chinese Orphanages

Orphanage Webpages

Volunteer help needed at Mexican Orphanange

Viengping Childrens Home

The Al Hussein Social Institution

Casa Hogar El Niño Feliz

Other Materials

Thrive-Net: a exploration of resilience.

Death Reading List

Tom Golden's Webpage

Psychological Issues for Children and Families in Disasters

Websters Death Dying and Grief Guide

Online Class on "Grief in a family context"

TLC's Grief Briefs

Orphan Parent Search Resources

Halcyon, an adoption webpage

This site has recently been contacted by a number of commercial enterprises about linking to, or advertising grief related products. I cannot endorse products without examining them. If you would like such a link, please send me a sample of your product.

JRW, LARGO CANYON SCHOOL, COUNSELOR, NEW MEXICO 87108

The Largo Canyon School is available for small retreats or workshops at little or no-cost to non-commercial programs. If you could make use of our facilities in the middle of the northwestern New Mexican wildlands, please call me. JRW 505-568-9131.