PUBLICATIONS Inside Illinois Vol. 26, No. 14, Feb. 15, 2007

Click photo to enlarge Photo courtesy WILL-TV Family divided The 10 sisters posed for a photo on the steps of the Coles County Courthouse just before their separation.

WILL documentary chronicles the fate of 10 sisters
UI professor of social work served as an adviser

They grew up sleeping 10 in a bed, took care of one another in their three-room rural home when their parents were too distracted to nurture their children, combed each other’s hair, climbed trees, walked to a one-room schoolhouse and had what they thought was a happy childhood in Paradise Township, Ill., despite having little in the way of material things.

But in March 1942, the 10 Waggoner sisters walked with their mother and father into the Coles County courthouse, and slowly realized that it was the last time their family would ever be together.

“10 Sisters: A True Story,” to be broadcast at 8 p.m. Feb. 19 on WILL-TV, tells the story of the mysterious courthouse proceeding that separated the 10 daughters of Glen and Ruth Waggoner from each other and their parents. The local documentary, produced and directed by WILL-TV’s Tim Hartin, paints a heart-rending picture of the inseparable sisters being torn apart as they cling to each other at the courthouse. Going immediately to live in foster and adoptive families, in an orphanage and, in the case of one girl, with relatives, the sisters never saw their home again.

The sisters have spent the last 65 years regaining the closeness they once shared, and the documentary is as much a triumphant story about their work to become a family again as it is a story of childhood loss.

Actors portrayed members of the Waggoner family to re-create scenes from the sisters’ childhood. These segments are woven with interviews of the sisters and old photos to dramatize their story. Filmed in Charleston, LeRoy, Mahomet, Philo and Sidney, the re-enactments show the fun, love and caring in the family as well as troubled family finances, arguments between the parents, and the state social workers who played a role in the break-up of the family.

The sisters wrote a book about their childhood, also titled “Ten Sisters: A True Story,” in which each sister wrote a chapter about her recollections. Hartin said he was hooked on the story when he saw the photos of the sisters on the book cover.

Mark Testa, UI professor of social work, and other advisers for the documentary had a lot to say about the sisters’ situation and how it reflected on the history of the child welfare system in America. Testa said, “Today’s child welfare system is much more responsive and supportive than in 1942, but it still has problems.

“Certainly the indifference that (was shown) to the needs of those children to stay together still prevails today. We don’t do as good a job of keeping siblings together in a foster home. We don’t do a good enough job in trying to make sure they can visit each other if they are separated, and we don’t do as good a job as we should in trying to see if we can preserve those sibling connections after the children leave the child welfare system and some of them are adopted in separate homes. So for the most part, I think the lessons are how much things have improved from where we were in the 1940s, but how we still have a long way to go to try and solve those problems.”

For more information about the documentary, visit www.will.uiuc.edu.

The documentary was made possible, in part, by a grant from the Illinois Humanities Council.

For video of the interview with Testa and author Joan Gittens, go to will.uiuc.edu/tv/documentaries/tensisters/experts.htm.

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