Turkish Immigrant Osla Esen

"During the trip we had a very big storm.  The boat was rocking and big fishes, sharks, they used to jump almost on the boat.  People were afraid.  They [the Jewish people] started to pray and throw the matzo in the ocean to calm the sea.  It calmed down very well and thank God, we arrived at Ellis Island three weeks later." (Osla Esen)

Ankara, Turkey directorate building courtesy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ankara.

During the Spanish Inquisition, Jews were driven out of Spain.  Some, like Osla Esen's ancestors, settled in Turkey, which welcomed them.  Osla grew up in Ankara, Turkey in a modest home.  She and her siblings slept on a Turkish carpet in the kitchen.

When Osla's father met her mother, he said:  "She is the prettiest girl in town."  However, at ten years younger, she was not ready to marry.  Osla's mother made some delicious dishes:  borek (pastries stuffed with feta cheese and spinach), doner (thinly sliced lamb similar to the Greek gyro), manta (dumplings stuffed with chopped meat served in a garlic and yogurt sauce) and patlican (pureed eggplant).

Borek courtesy http://www.turkishyummies.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Leek-Borek-Final.jpg.

Osla's father worked as a tinsmith soldering lamps.  He and Osla's mother owned a business in Ankara.  With great people skills, he worked well with the customers while with great math skills, she handled the books.

At home Osla and her family spoke Ladino, the Spanish spoken in Spain.  However, on the street they spoke Turkish.  At school, they learned a third language, French.

Osla's parents wanted a better opportunity for their children and decided to immigrate to America.  Osla's father made the trans-Atlantic passage in 1912.  The following year, Osla's mother, Osla and her siblings made the voyage.  They travelled in steerage on the Argentina.  Osla was seasick:  all she could keep down was bread and garlic.

"During the trip we had a very big storm.  The boat was rocking and big fishes, sharks, they used to jump almost on the boat.  People were afraid.  They [the Jewish people] started to pray and throw the matzo in the ocean to calm the sea.  It calmed down very well and thank God, we arrived at Ellis Island three weeks later."

The family settled in a Jewish neighbourhood on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.  About a month or two after their arrival, Osla's father took them to see the Statue of Liberty.  Osla said:  "I remember staring out through her eyes to Manhattan in the distance."

Boy peeks through the crown of the Statue of Liberty courtesy http://i12bent.tumblr.com/page/1131.

Finnish Immigrants Murray, Isaac & Adelle Youman

"If you ever want to see Hell, take a boat in the middle of a hurricane in the middle of the Atlantic.  I was so sick that they had to tie me outside of the ship to keep me from going overboard.  I was watching waves that looked over a hundred feet high, the boat looked one quarter of its size." (Murray Youman)

Finnish ski troops in Northern Finland circa 1940 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_War#/media/File:Finn_ski_troops.jpg. 

Isaac and Adelle Youman were born and raised in Helsinki, Finland.  Their brother, Murray, was born in Warsaw, Poland.  When their father, Herman, first set eyes on their mother, Greta, he said:  "She was the prettiest girl in town."  However, he was ten years older than her and she wasn't ready to marry.  

Herman was already working as a tailor at the age of fourteen; his employees were married men.  Later, Greta worked with him at their men's clothing factory.  The family lived in an upper middle class apartment with their parents, grandmother and uncle, along with two maids.  Isaac points out that, with their parents working all the time, they were brought up by the maids.  "We were a noisy Jewish family that spoke Yiddish as a primary language in Finland," explained Adelle.

While the family follolwed their Jewish religion, they also recognized the Christian traditions celebrated by their fellow Finns who were 99% Christian (Lutheran).  The siblings would go to the Helsinki synagogue to pray, three of only 2000 Jews in the city, but at home they would eat whatever they wanted.  

Murray remembers dodging bombs during the Finnish-Russian War. (also called the Winter War because it was fought on skis).  He saw his father dash into a burning building to save someone, only to have it blow up as soon as he emerged.  "Living next to a country which could swallow you up in no time at all was scary."  When Murray returned years later to get his birth certificate, he found that the hospital in which he had been born was destroyed during the war.  Adelle pointed out that it was the war that precipitated their immigration  Otherwise, they would not have left a country that had treated them so well for 12 years.  While they did not know English, America was safe:  free of pogroms, free of wars.

Herman and Greta only attended school for a few years.  As adults, they both signed up for night school.  While Herman quit shortly thereafter Greta stuck it out and received her high school diploma.  Adelle said that she was very bright, very gifted mathematically.  While Herman was had a knack for handling their customers, Adelle was the brains behind the business.  She took care of the books.

In 1940, the family decided to immigrate.  They took a train to Stockholm, Sweden, stopping every time their was an air raid, the passengers diving into the snow.  They took a second train to Oslo, NOrway where they boarded to the S. S. Bergensfjord.  The war was already underway and the trans-Atlantic crossing could have been a dangerous one.  The captain kept changing the flag on the ship to fool the submarines.   

To top it all off, the family experienced a hurricane.  "If you ever want to see Hell, take a boat in the middle of a hurricane in the middle of the Atlantic," explained Murray.  "I was so sick that they had to tie me outside of the ship to keep me from going overboard.  I was watching waves that looked over a hundred feet high, the boat looked one quarter of its size."

The boat reached America safely.  Murray reminisced:  "When I first saw it [the Statue of Liberty] I had tears in my eyes."  Because the family's papers were not in order, they were detained at Ellis Island for six weeks.  Segregated, Isaac and Adelle stayed with their mother while Murray stayed with their father.  Isaac remembers the Orientals being separated from the Causcasians, the officials fearful that the former would be bringing in infectious diseases.  In 1986, when the renovation started on the immigration station, Adelle asked her mother if she would like to visit.  "I'll never set foot there [Ellis Island] again."   

Settling in Brooklyn, it was the first time that the siblings had lived alongside Blacks.  Murray found it strange the divide between Blacks and Whites.  Across the street was a park filled with Black children playing.  Herman grabbed his kids, placed them right in the middle of the Black kids, and snapped a photo.

It was quite an adjustment for the family which was privileged enough to send their children to private schools back in Finland, and now they attended public schools.  While they lived as part of the upper middle class back home, they lived in a ghetto neighbourhood in Brooklyn.  Isaac remembers being made fun of for his heavy accent.  However, they persevered.  Today, all three siblings are professionals, happy to live in America.

Children playing hopskotch on a Brooklyn street circa 1950 courtesy http://iconsofnewyork.com/.

Welsh Immigrant Randall Peat

"God gave me every inch of the United States of America to live in.  And I have lived here now eighty two years.  I wouldn't want to live no place else." (Randall Peat)

Postcard of Colwyn Bay where wealthy English tourists used to vacation circa 1900 courtesy http://www.simplonpc.co.uk/Wales-Piers.html. 

Born and raised in Colwyn Bay, Wales on the Irish Sea, Randall Peat was the son of a miner.  When he was only one year old, his father was crushed to death in an avalanche of limestones in the mine. His mother became a live in maid at one of the mansions in town.  Little Randall was raised by his grandparents. His grandfather worked on a farm where he raised cows, pigs and horses and grew barley and wheat.  "[He] didn't live to make money; [he] lived to exist."

Randall's grandfather rented the land at one English pound per acre.  The area in which he lived had originally been owned by the farmers; however, the British government later took it and gave it to the wealthy who in turn rented it out to the same farmers.  Surprisingly, no bitterness existed between the tenants and the landowners according to Randall.  The latter knew that they depended on the former for a livelihood.  "That's why I'm in the United States...'with Liberty and justice for all,' explained Randall, referring to Britain's class system.

  

Randall worked on the farm sowing seeds by hand and pulling a team of horses to bury the seed.  Often, he and his siblings would eat bread crusts doused in pig's fat for flavour or an egg with tea for supper.  Randall would wear his brother's hand me down shirts which his grandmother patched up  At school, Welsh was forbidden; only English was spoken.  If you misspelled a word, you were flogged with a big stick.  "Despite this, we only had one one to live and that was happy."

To Randall, three things were important;  home, work and church.  The English only recognized one church, the Episcopalian or Anglican Church.  The Welsh in the area belonged to the Baptist church which was taxed heavily by the English.  "The practice of it was very hushed up, secretive."  Marriages in the Baptist church were not recognized by the English.  

It was at church that Randall first got the idea to immigrate to America.  He met a teenage boy who had just returned from New York where he had earned good money as a stable hand.  With only twenty pounds to his name, Randall didn't think he had enough money for his passage but the other boy said yes.  He recommended second rather than third class (steerage) ticket so that at Ellis Island, they would be questioned on board the ship rather than in the immigration station.  "It's worth the extra five pounds," he explained.

In 1914, Randall and his new friend, Dave, took a train from Colwyn Bay to Liverpool where they boarded the S.S. Baltic.  They were joined by immigrants from Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Ethiopia, Egypt and Germany.  Overcome by seasickness, Randall just wanted to jump into the water.  Dave recommended a dose of whisky which seemed to do the trick.  At Ellis Island, officials boarded the ship and inquired if Randall and Dave had money in their pockets once they reached the mainland:  "You're not going to live on no relief."

Randall and Dave arrived in New York City where they took the Delaware and Lackawanna Railroad to Utica, New York.  Randall rode in an automobile for the first time when Dave's uncle picked them up at the train station.  Randall was hired immediately to work at Borden's Condensery in Waterville where he shovelled coal.  Later he was promoted to the milk plant where he capped bottles.

Randall's boss gave him Sunday off so he could attend church, informing him about a Welsh congregation nearby.  When Randall arrived at the church, a friendly man introduced himself.  The minister was absent that Sunday and before Randall knew it, he was up at the front leading the congregation in a hymn.  Urged to continue, he read a chapter of Pilgrim's Progress to the congregation in Welsh.  Afterwards, people rushed up to shake his hand.  

A young girl from Colwyn Bay followed Randall to America.  Within six months they were married. They had a daughter and lived together for sixty two years.  To this day, Randall gets called upon to deliver a sermon once in a while.  He often recites the 23rd Psalm at funerals.  "The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want..."

New immigrants gaze at Statue of Liberty circa 1900 courtesy http://abcnews.go.com/US/photos/statue-liberty-reopens-126th-anniversary-17571017/image-17571251.

Italian Immigrant Angelina Palmiero

"They got us kids to take the almonds out of the shells and put them in a burlap bag.  We wanted to get into the bag because they said the bag was going to America." (Angelina Palmiero)

Facciata della Chiesa Madre in San Cataldo, Sicily circa 1940's courtesy https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Facciata_della_Chiesa_Madre_di_San_Cataldo.jpg. 

Growing up on an olive and almond ranch, Angelina Palmiero and her siblings had to help out.  "They got us kids to take the almonds out of the shells and put them in a burlap bag.  We wanted to get into the bag because they said the bag was going to America."  Angelina remembers marching around the playground of her school the day that Mussolini took power.  

While Angelina's family held down the fort in Sicily, her father set out for America.  Once employed, he started sending his family money, with the intent of sending for them once he was established.  However, just before Angelina's family set out for America, she received a black eye.  Her mother cried, terrified that they would be rejected due to the injury.  With the eye healed, the Italian family boarded the Giuseppe Verdi, packing all of their belongings in two trunks.  The tickets were free of charge, since Mr. Palmiero had returned to Italy from the United States to serve in the First World War in exchange for free passage for his wife and children.  Angelina was teary eyed when she waved goodbye to her grandfathers and grandmother.

Almond orchard in California courtesy http://www.farmlandgrab.org/uploads/images/photos/8455/original_Almonds_004.jpg?1421087852

During the thirteen day voyage across the Atlantic, Angelina suffered from swollen glands and a high fever.  Arriving in America on her birthday, "Somebody yelled:  'The Statue of Liberty, the Statue of Liberty!'  We all ran to the railing to see, and everybody was praying and kissing and happy that we were coming up the Hudson."  With Ellis Island crowded, the Giuseppe Verdi weighed anchor and its passengers waited.

Finally, Angelina's father arrived on a tugboat and she set eyes on him for the first time.  A bunch of bananas in his hand, she took one ready to bite into it.  "Don't eat it like that.  Take the skin off first," shouted her father.  

The passengers disembarked on the island where Angelina, separated from her family, convalesced in the hospital for 23 days.  Her parents and sisters travelled to Pennsylvania where her aunt and uncle lived, paying a $250 bond promising that they would return for Angelina.  No one explained to Angelina where her family had gone.  With "two lumps the size of walnuts in her throat", Angelina was given medicine everyday.  At night, she remembers opening a gate and looking up at the Statue of Liberty, all lit up.  

http://www.gettyimages.com.au/detail/video/aerial-approach-over-statue-of-liberty-at-night-stock-video-footage/168094043

One day, Angelina stood in front of the judge in the big hall at Ellis Island and he declared that she could go.  She recognized her father by his grey hair which belied his 33 years.  On the train from New Jersey to Pennsylvania, her father bought her a Hershey's chocolate bar, her first.  

Her parents now reunited, Angelina's mother started having more babies, on average one a year.  Angelina became like a little mother to her younger siblings.  Her father worked at the Edison Company.  Angelina enrolled in Grade 1.  While a bright student, she struggled at first to learn English.  At 16, she took a trip to visit her aunt but never returned, settling in New York City.

New York City skyline circa 1932 courtesy http://charismatic33.tumblr.com/post/136432438579/from-warner-quinlans-dock-long-island-city-1932.

French Immigrant Lara Bisset

"I saw the Statue of Liberty.  It was so impressive, so majestic, so meaningful.  Freedom!  Opportunity!  And most of all, it linked to us, America and France, because we knew that it was given to America by France." (Lara Bisset)

Jews flee the Cossacks circa 1905 courtesy 

http://kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/odessa/LIF_violence.asp.

In 1990, Lara Bisset visited the newly renovated Ellis Island for the first time since she immigrated to America in 1920.  What struck her was the Odessa, Ukraine Exhibit which explained the murder of hundreds of Jews at the hands of Russian Cossacks in 1905.  Lara's parents, also Odessa Jews, had escaped over the German border with their six month old son.  Trudging through the deep snow, her mother was "frozen up to the waist".  But she refused to go on without her baby, her legs "like two purple sticks".  

The Bisset's wandered around first Germany, then Luxembourg and finally Belgium, but didn't like any of the countries.  However, once they entered France, they knew they were home.  It was there that Lara was born in 1909.  While the Bisset's were poor, they managed to survive thanks to the help of their uncle who owned a dry goods store.  They would buy up dry goods to sell at foires (country fairs) which would help to put food on the table.  

It was a happy time for Lara.  The Bisset's new hometown did not have a synogogue but it did have a Roman Catholic church.  "You have to be exposed to religion," said Mrs. Bisset, who sent them to the Roman Catholic church only a block away.  She remembers picnics in the park where the family would munch on saucisses and peasant bread.  Entertainment came in the form of an accordion.  

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/319403798544419513/

After Mr Bisset served in the French Legion during the First World War, Mrs. Bisset begged him to go to America where her three siblings lived.  After much resistance, Mr. Bisset gave in and the family immigrated in 1920.  As the Touraine entered New York Harbor, Lara recalled:  "I saw the Statue of Liberty.  It was so impressive, so majestic, so meaningful.  Freedom!  Opportunity!  And most of all, it linked to us, America and France, because we knew that it was given to America by France." 

Statue of Liberty on display at Paris World's Fair circa 1878 courtesy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_Liberty#/media/File:Head_of_the_Statue_of_Liberty_on_display_in_a_park_in_Paris.jpg.

While the boat ride was exciting, the immigration process was less pleasant.  Adults and children were immediately segregated, a scary experience for Lara.  The sights and sounds were an assault to the senses.  Lara recalls:  "I remember hordes of people.  There were quite a few children and mothers, walking up those wide steps into the main building.  I remember the darkness, the wooden benches, the poorly lit hall, the babies screaming the children crying, adults crying.  It was awful."

With the tedious paperwork behind them, the Bissett family collected their luggage and took the ferry to the mainland where Lara's uncle picked them up in a Model T at Battery Park.  Language was an immediate barrier as the Bissett's spoke French and their brother spoke English.  Yiddish was their only common language.  

Lara would forge a new identity in New Jersey, retiring to Florida in the 1980's.  

Austrian Immigrant Estelle Miller

"Even the stones in the sidewalk are not kosher." (Estelle Miller's grandfather)

Estelle Miller grew up in a small town in Austria, part of one of 50 Jewish families.  Bilche Zlote had a synagogue and a church.  While the majority of its citizens were Christian, they lived in harmony with the Jews.  Estelle lived on a farm with apple, cherry and plum trees.  Her family owned their own cow and chickens.  Her mother would collect eggs and sell them to the locals.  While they had enough to eat, the Miller's were poor.  Frau Miller worried about providing a dowry for her two daughters when they married.  Her brother, who had immigrated to America, urged her to come.  

A family in Bilche Zlote announced they were immigrating to America and Estelle's sister wanted to go with them.  However, her grandfather, not wishing her to leave Austria, warned:  "Even the stones in the sidewalk are not kosher."  After Estelle's grandfather passed away, her sister sailed to the New World.  Her father followed a short time after.  Eventually, Estelle's mother sold the farm and the animals and planned her passage to America, along with her daughter.  Worried about a china bowl which was a family heirloom, she refused to pack it in her suitcase and gave it to Estelle to carry, all the way to Hamburg, Germany.

In 1909, the mother and daughter made it to America in only six days on the Hamburg-American Line, the first boat to do so.   Estelle's older sister's trip had lasted a month, during which she got sick and almost died. They travelled in steerage, refusing to eat the meat because it was not kosher.  Upon entering New York Harbor, Estelle spotted a giant statue.  No one knew who it was.  "Don't you know?" asked one passenger.  "That's Columbus."  

At the immigration station on Ellis Island, the doctor examined Estelle for glaucoma in a rough manner.  Amidst the screaming babies, all of a sudden a door opened and a black man walked into the room.  Estelle, never having seen a black person before, dropped the china bowl which shattered.  

Austrian farmhouse circa 1900 courtesy http://zelltree.net/ZStephanDescendants.htm.

The New Colussus

Emma Lazarus circa 1872 courtesy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Lazarus/.

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning,and her name

Mother of Exiles.  From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she

With silent lips.  "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses 

yearning to breathe free

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me

I lift my lamp beside the golden door."

The Statue of Liberty, dedicated in 1886, sits on Liberty Island.  New immigrants used to pass by it on their way to the immigration station on Ellis Island.  Emma Lazarus' sonnet, The New Colussus, was written in 1883 and inscribed on the base of the State of Liberty in 1903. 

State of Liberty circa early 1900's when poem was inscribed courtesy http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/26/how-a-sonnet-made-a-statue-the-mother-of-exiles/?_r=0.

Island of Hope, Island of Tears

Statue of Liberty circa 1960, six years after Ellis Island closed, courtesy http://www.nycvintageimages.com/category/old-new-york-photo-catalog/statue-liberty.

As immigrants arrived in New York Harbor on ships from Europe or Asia, they caught their first glimpse of the Statue of Liberty, a symbol of "the land of the free and the home of the brave".  In Liberty's shadow sat Ellis Island, where the newcomers would debark.  America represented a refuge for immigrants fleeing persecution, poverty or war.  But when they first arrived, they felt both hope and fear.  The immigration process could be quite daunting.

1. 

http://sydaby.eget.net/swe/ellis_island.htm

The sounds that greeted the recent arrivals at the immigration station were an assault to the senses.  "Various languages blended into a confusing roar, and the colorful clothing so many immigrants wore gave the appearance of a costume party.  Pushing and surging crowds, along with the sounds of babies crying, mothers wailing in search of missing children, and staff barking out orders to go this way or that, little of which produced any understanding, all prevailed." (https://www.amazon.com/Encountering-Ellis-Island-European-Immigrants/)

http://www.greeknewsonline.com/the-ellis-island-immigration-museum-part-iii-name-changes-setting-the-record-straight/

The smells were equally overwhelming.  "Looking down from the balcony surrounding the iron maze, one could describe a sea of people packed together.  The combination of food, sweat, vermin and the crowds of bodies gave the place, as one immigrant observed, "a foul odor."

The questions posed by the immigration officials were daunting, especially to someone who didn't speak English.  One wrong answer could be the difference between a yes and a no.  Questions raced through the immigrant's mind:  "Should a bribe be offered as was the custom in the Old World?"

http://www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/imm-hai-trachoma.htm

The medical exam was nerve racking.   Parents make a valiant effort to hide their children's rashes, injuries, illnesses or strange behaviours.  Even so, some were still taken off the line, an X marked in chalk on the back of their coat. 

"The immigration machine moved along regardless of fear or hope, relentlessly spitting out those deemed unacceptable and pushing along those allowed entry."  Known for its efficiency, Ellis Island processed as many as 5,000 new arrivals each day, an endless queue filing past, endless paperwork being stamped, an endless list of names being entered into a ledger.

http://www.genealogyintime.com/articles/Ellis%20Island%20Immigration%20Facts%20page5.html