Morning fog shrouds the Manchuria's hull and surrounding pier. A young teacher with dark hair and icy blue eyes crosses the gangplank to board the six hundred foot steamship. Planting his foot on the deck, he turns and nods a farewell to Hamburg and his homeland of Germany. Four thousand miles lie ahead.
Ten days from today he will reach Ellis Island. In ten years he will meet and marry his wife, Helen. Shortly thereafter the two will welcome their first child, a boy. In all, he and his wife will raise seven children, six boys and one girl. Eighty five years from now his wife will hold their great-great-granddaughter.A blast from the ship's horn announces her intent to launch. He checks his pocket for the last time - twenty five dollars and that address of a friend in Detroit.
I cannot imagine the guts it must have taken to immigrate to a new country where I could not even speak the language, but one thing my Dad never lacked was guts!Gute reise, vater!
Where on earth did you find the manifest? Very interesting!
ReplyDeleteAusgezeichneter Geschichte onkel John!
ReplyDeleteI want to especially thank the Web Master for inserting the photos I requested. If you click on the ship's manifest, it will show you my Dad's information as well as his friend above him, Otto Kuhn.
ReplyDeleteThey were headed for a boarding house in Detroit. I Googled the address, but it must have been torn down years ago as its now an industrial or factory building.
The manifest shows him to be a 5-foot 10-inch tall, with dark hair and blue eyes, 20 year old teacher with exactly $25 dollars to his name.
The manifest is from ellisisland.org.
ReplyDeleteGreat post. Thank you. Lesse, $25 is about $300 in today's dollars. I am actually surprised customs let him cross with so little. That is less than most of us take as spending cash on vacation. He definitely had a heck of a lot of guts.
ReplyDelete@ RPG - Danke
ReplyDelete