Reminds me of a book, Mailing May[1], I read to my daughter and now my granddaughter. A true story of a family on a budget who sent their daughter to see grandma as mail cargo on a train. Cute story.

https://www.amazon.com/Mailing-May-Michael-Tunnell/dp/006443...

"Mailing May" (http://www.amazon.com/Mailing-May-Michael-O-Tunnell/dp/00644...) is a good (fictionalized) account of the story in the third paragraph, that of May Pierstorff. (By the way, the town was Grangeville, ID, not Graneville.)