Board Thread:Spoilers!/@comment-6175354-20140214194039/@comment-4839682-20140216214236

Ruby ridinghood wrote: Utter solitude wrote: I don't remember Emma mentioning an orphanage...

In fact, unless the LWM deviates from the real-world on this, there really aren't "orphanages" in Maine (or the US, for that matter) even in the 1980s. Emma would have been bounced between different foster homes, probably with varying numbers of children. (The home she was in with Pinocchio, for example, was a foster home) There's a lot of Christian & Catholic orphanges in the U.S, so Emma could have spent time in on of them. Most likely, no, she wouldn't. Yes, there are larger group homes for children that are run by religious organizations, but children typically aren't placed in them via state/federal officers. The state of Maine would have placed the kids into a foster home. Which, we know, is what they did with baby Emma and Pinocchio; placed them into a foster home. (That clearly was some kind of kid-farm. Sad) I'm not saying such a thing is impossible, but as Emma was a ward of the state, she would have been placed into some sort of state facility. Orphanages as people imagine them simply don't exist any more in the US.