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Sunday, October 19, 2008

Streets of Gold, not so much!

Ellis Island is a symbol of America’s immigrant heritage. From 1892 to 1954, this immigrant depot processed the greatest tide of incoming humanity in the nation’s history. Nearly twelve million landed here in their search of freedom of speech and religion, and for economic opportunity.

The Yankees play out of Yankee Stadium located at 161st St. and River Avenue in the Bronx. The stadium, opened in April 18, 1923, is one of the most famous ballparks in history.

FUEL CHIEF ISSUES WEATHER WARNING; Goethals Says Shipment of Coal From Mines May Be Delayed Without Notice. New York Times February 4, 1923.

31-2 INCHES OF SNOW SETS JANUARY MARK; Yesterday's Fall Brings Total to 21.6 Inches, Against 20.3 Inches in 1893. New York Times January 1923.

LUXOR, Egypt, Feb. 20. -- It might be asked why not get some of the stuff out of the two chambers of the tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen that are still stored with treasures, and learn what is there.

Another story of the fury of the storms which have been raging on the Atlantic for the last three months was related yesterday. January 31, 1923.

HUNGARY TO PAY AUSTRIA.; Court Awards the Latter 3,000,000 Francs' Burgenland Reparation. (Burgenland is the state my grandmother lived in) February 1923.

Edison Swings Leg Over Chair 4 Feet High on 76th Birthday February 1923.

Left to Right: Grandfather, Joe, Grandmother's Sister Rose, Grandmother, My mother.
Searching the archives of Ellis Island I came across my Grandmother's name, Anna Mayer. There was copy of the ships manifest, The Lapland, with her name on it. There is a picture of the ship which was a beautiful two funnel steamer. It was built in 1909 entering the Port of New York on February 18, 1923 with my grandmother aboard. Her father's brother Julius Mayer was the receiving relative and she had $25 cash in hand. It seems Uncle Julius, as I knew him, had paid for her ticket. She was 15! 15!

My grandmother had traveled alone across the Atlantic sent to the U. S. by her father Johann Mayer from Austria. Trying to imagine what it would be like for a 15 year old farm girl from Austria to travel across the Atlantic leaves me blank. Maybe terrifying at the lest scared of what lies ahead? All her mother and father along with brothers, sisters and friends gone. She may have had vague memories of Uncle Julius for he had moved to the states years before. It seems upon her arrival that it was cold enough that February for New York City to have problems getting coal across the ice flows on the Hudson River.

She had several stories about that time in her life. One was that the reason her father sent her to America was because he though she would not survive farm life. She told of her father telling her to put stone's behind the wheels of the horse drawn wagon so it would not roll down the hill they had just come up. She decided her fists would work as well as stones, however they did not and both hands were smashed as the wheels rolled over them. She stated that she was lucky that it had rained and the ground was soft or she might have lost both hands.

Another is waking the next morning and looking out the window expecting to see beautiful America she had been told about. What she was was a town covered in gray ash from the cement mills in the area. So she spent the next few years working in a cigar factory rolling cigars on her hip before marring my grandfather and moving to New York City. She faired no better the and by reports became suicidal to the point my grandfather had to shut off the gas to their apartment and lock her in while he went to work.

In 1930 she took my mother, who was three at the time, back to Austria. When she returned see would not see her parents again before they died. When I was a child we would drive to Coplay and vist Uncle Julius and his wife Aunt Pauline. I think the last time we visited them was in the late 1950's. In early 1960's her youngest sister moved to Canada for a brief time, but returned to Austria soon after. My grandmother passed without ever seeing her mother, father or brothers and sisters again.

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