Originally published as the “Bringing Up the Rear” column in the June/July 2004 issue of the NGS NewsMagazine, a publication of the National Genealogical Society, this article is copyright 2004 by James W. Warren.

Coming to America
by guest columnist Ole Smirnoff Bernatelli

Many of you will not be remembering me because we have never been meeting yet. And that’s OK, because I don’t have a very good memories at my age either. But here we are for you to be reading my column in the NGS NewsMagazines, so how do you do?

Now let me be telling you the stories of how I was coming to America, because it is probably just like the story of how your ancestors immigrationed, only different names and places and dates and ships and ports and people and weather and crew and food and also possiblies different details too, but pretty much otherwise all the same. (Now, not many people are knowing the story of how I immigrationed to the U.S. because it brings back so many painful memories that I have never told anyone, so if you are reading this, please don’t repeat it, OK?)

Once upon a long time ago, back in the old country when I was having been a youngster, I was having the dream of coming to the US of A and being a writers for the National Society of Genealogicals NewsMagazines. This was a really bigger dream for a poor kid in old country to be having in those days, because I was having no money and was a long way from any ships and because NGS NewsMagazines was not even in existing back then, but I still had very great faiths in my dream anyway.

In little village where I was born life was very hard. Mama was put in a hospital because she had the willies, and when Papa was six years old, he was captured by Dirt Road Men from another village and never heard from again. So all the people in our little village were my friend and like a families for me. I would leave my little cottage and go next door to Antonio’s hut. He would come to the door and say “Ole, Buon Jurno, you have brightened up my day! Why don’t you brightened up Swen’s day by visiting him too?” So I would go next door to Swen’s cottage, and Swen would say “Ole, oh sure, you betcha it’s so good to see you. Boris is feeling poorly from his Rheumatisms; why don’t you be visiting him?” At Boris’s cabin, I would knock and Boris would yell out, “Ole, with my Rheumatisms I can’t get out of bed to unlock the door for you, but just having you outside my door is enough! Why don’t you visit Antonio?”

And so you can see life was hard and it went on like this for many years till I finally said to myself, “Ole, wouldn’t you like to live in a village with more than four cottages?” So I told Boris one morning that I was thinking about immigrationing to America, where the streets were paved with silver linings. And Boris was being so excited for me by this news that he jumped out of bed and ran to Antonio’s hut and Swen’s cottage and they came to me with a cornhusk filled with gold coins, enough to pay for my passage one way to America. But it was on the conditionals that I had to stay in Americas for ten years to give everyones in America the chances to hear all my wonderful stories I was always telling Swen and Boris and Antonio. All three stories.

And so I walked to town of Brinsko, which had a emmigrationing agent, and he told me how to get to the port and sold me a ticket for the ship to be bringing me to the US of As. I had to board the ship at Liverpool, which meant that I had to walk a many hundreds and hundreds of miles to get to Portugal, and then hitcherhike a ride on a ship to Liverpool. All that took me seven months.

It was the first time I had ever been out of my little village, and I saw many wonderful things I had never been seeing before, like ice cubes and chocolate eclairs and soap. And there were so many people and farms and trees and villages and mountains and roads and sheeps and potholes along the way. It was wonderful and exciting even if some people treated me badlys because I spoke a different language and was dusty from the dirt roads and had shoes made from eucalyptus leaves. Many other people were kind to me and gave me water to be drinking and a place to sleep and foods to eat and then charged me many of my coins to pay for it, so in the end I guess it all is balancing out.

When I got to Portugal the only boat I could find that would take hitcherhikers was not a very big one, and the man who was rowing it said that I could come along if I used the bucket to bail it.

I was pretty tired by the time we got acrossed the English Channel but he let me keep the bucket, and I still have it and use it now as my lunch pail. (Some days I walk to work, and other days I carry my lunch, but that’s another stories, of course.)

Voyage to America
It was bumpy and very wet.

More about the Trip
I had to stop writering that last paragraph - —I got seasick again just thinking about it.

Coming to America
So , to be making shortly these stories, let me be tellings you what it was like to be an immigrants person on the ship I was on. My ticket was for steerage, which was the lowest part of the ship where the steering machines were. It was dark down there. It was so dark all the time because we were below the water line, and because they kept the doors shut all the time and there was no sunshine and almost nobody had any lanterns or candles or Ronco lighters. When the immigrationing agent told me about the ship, he said it was a beautiful ship built to carry 1,100 passengers. But there were over 2,300 peoples of us in steerage on this trip. There were no showers or toilets, and there were not nearly enough foods for us to eat, and very little to drink.

Peoples were always getting seasick and fighting and crying. It was always noisy and smelly and we were all miserable. But still no one wanted to join in my group sing-alongs, even if they spoke same language as me, so I did solo group sing-alongs. Sometimes in America, immigrants didn’t want to talk about the old country or the voyage over, and maybe it is because of bad rememories like these I have. (Or because they were wanted for crimes or left a wife or lots of bills behind in the old country. There were lots of good reasons for coming to America.)

Alice Island
We were all looking forward to arrivals at New York where I had been told we would go through the Immigrations Inspections at Alice Island. But we never got there that month because the ship I was on hit a iceberg, which I found out is like a big ice cube in the water. The ship went all tipsy and turney, and we all were throwned into the water. (I had never been in water before. Our little village in the old country was so poor we had no water. The water was really cold, but I have to admit it was nice to finally be feeling cleans after all those years of washing up with goose fat.) I was luckily to be pulled into a lifeboat, and we were drifting for many days and nearlys as many nights on the water and the little life boat just went up and down and up….

Latvia
I had to stop again, but anyway to be making a long story shortly, our little life boat was finally drifting to shores, only we had not been landing at the US of As after all, but at Latvia, which was sure not New York, you can be placing your bets, please. So I stayed there only long enoughs to be saving up moneys to buy another ticket to US of A. Sure enoughs, seventeen years later, I was back on a ship sailing to US of As, only this time I was able to arrival at Ellis Island. I never did find out what had becomed of Alice Island.

So, OK, maybe another time Ole can be writering another column and telling you of what it was like to be coming through Immigrations at Ellis Island, OK? Thanks, I would be liking that too.

Your friend,

Ole


About the author:

Our guest columnist for this issue, Ole Smirnoff Bernatelli, is believed to be the oldest living member of NGS. An imminent genealogist, he is the president of the Swedish-Italian-Russian Association of Genealogicals People Group International and a veteran of the Latvian Fishing Boat Uprising. He is the author of the critically acclaimed My Ancestors To This Point, and a columnist for the Immigrant Fishing Boat News. Ole is a wide and respected author whose articles have not appeared in The American Genealogist, the NEHGS Register, the NGS Quarterly, Family Tree Magazine, the NYG&B Record, Family Chronicle, Heritage Quest, Everton’s Genealogical Magazine, The New York Times, People, U.S. News & World Report, Soap Opera News, Modern Woodworking, or Martha Stewart’s Living.