My parents both died when I was a child, I was orphaned. 
Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that! While it's certainly not something to hope for, know that you're in good company. Many celebrated writers, businessmen and world leaders are also orphans.
Really? I didn't know that. Can you tell me an example? 
Nelson Mandela was an orphan! Although it isn't clear if he lost both parents because the United Nations will classify someone as an orphan due to the loss of one parent.
Oh, that's interesting. I didn't know that, I thought a person had to lose both parents. Any other well known orphans?
Edgar Allen Poe was also an orphan. I'm not sure if his parents died or if they abandoned him. 
It's hard to know, back then a lot of factors separated families, including poverty and disease. These days it is much less common to be orphaned in the US or other developed countries, I think. 
I think you're 100% correct. A lot of kids were orphaned by war and thankfully we haven't had anything as catastrophic as the Korean War, which created many orphans.
Yes, also the 1918 influenza and the Great Depression probably contributed to a lot of children here being orphaned back in the day.
Spanish flu
The 1918 influenza pandemic (January 1918 – December 1920; colloquially known as Spanish flu) was an unusually deadly influenza pandemic, the first of the two pandemics involving H1N1 influenza virus. It infected 500 million people around the world, including people on remote Pacific islands and in the Arctic, and resulted in the deaths of 50 to 100 million (three to five percent of Earth's human population at the time), making it one of the deadliest natural disasters in human history.
Infectious
manager, Colonel Tom Parker, told her that it was standard procedure for the songwriter to sign over half of the publishing rights to any song Elvis recorded. Parton refused. She recalls:I said, 'I'm really sorry,' and I cried all night. I mean, it was like the worst thing. You know, it's like, Oh, my God … Elvis Presley.' And other people were saying, 'You're nuts. It's Elvis Presley.' ...I said, '