While Cassopolis artist Ruth Andrews may be the one holding the brush, several Justus Gage students will play an important role in helping her bring the historic Orphan Train to life later this year.

In the coming days, Andrews will stop by the Dowagiac elementary school to photograph several students, who will serve as models for the mural she is in the process of creating in downtown Dowagiac. She will pose the children in the positions she has sketched out for the massive painting, using the photos she takes as reference material for the final painting, she said.

“It will give the children a sense of ownership of the mural,” Andrews said. “This is a project for the city of Dowagiac and for anyone interested in the Orphan Train. People should feel like this is their mural, and this is one way of creating that feeling.”

The work is the latest step in a project that has consumed much of Andrews’ creative energy for more than a year now.

Working alongside Dowagiac Area History Museum Director Steve Arseneau and several others throughout the community, the Cassopolis woman has been in the process of coming up with designs for a mural depicting the Orphan Train, which made its first stop in Dowagiac in 1854.

The mural, which will be funded by a nearly $15,000 grant from the Michigan Humanities Council, will be located on the grey wall underneath the post office facing Pennsylvania Avenue.

An artist’s granddaughter, art has been a part of the Chicago native’s life for as far back as she can remember, she said. Although she had dabbled in film and other mediums when she was younger, painting has been one of Andrews’ passions from an early age.

“I just absolutely love painting,” Andrews said. “I respond to it very emotionally. A good painting changes your life. It is an incredible force, and I like to spend my time trying to accomplish that through my work.”

While studying abroad in Mexico, Andrews fell in love with the many murals that dominate the sides of buildings in the country, she said. In the years that followed, she began creating similar works, creating murals for places such as the Elkhart General Hospital, she said.

In 2009, she and a group of women came up with the idea of creating a mural in Cassopolis, depicting the Kentucky Raid of 1847, where a group of people from Vandalia banded together to prevent a group of Kentuckians from capturing a handful of escaped slaves. It was this project where Andrews first worked with Arseneau, researching the event for nearly a year before creating the mural in 2010.

Five years later, while coaching a team of middle school students for Michigan History Day, she was inspired to create another historical mural, this time about the Orphan Train.

“We were fascinated by the whole thing, especially about the experiences those children must have gone through,” she said. “The families that took them in must have had a lot of courage, too.”

In 2016, Andrews and Arseneau began making plans to create the mural, along with a series of events to coincide with its unveiling.

Over the last several months, Andrews has been creating designs for the mural, which will tell the story of the young riders of the train, from the start of their stories living on the streets of New York City to them eventually living happy lives at their new homes in Dowagiac — as well as telling the tales of children who were not as fortunate, Andrews said.

The artist plans on patching up the downtown wall the mural will be painted on in March, in hopes of starting work in the summer. She is hoping to find several volunteers to help with painting work for the project, she said.

The project is expected to wrap up in fall.

“We are only painting one side of the wall, so hopefully this mural will spark even more in the future,” she said.