Walking in His Footsteps
By Barbara McLean
It’s a sunny day in New York harbor as my husband and I wait for the ferry from Liberty Landing in New Jersey to take us to Ellis Island. The statue of Liberty stands out to our right but that’s not the destination.
For years I have wanted to go and walk in the footsteps of my maternal grandfather, Hjalmar August Sjöberg, as he first stepped onto American soil and here was my opportunity. I was gifted with his diary that he kept from the time he was a young man in 1899 almost up until his death in 1972. The first years are all in Swedish and getting translations has been difficult but with help along the way I’ve been able to piece together the voyage beginning in his tiny village outside of Norrköping.
His voyage began as he traveled by train to Goteberg and on April 9 he boards the ship Ariosta where he is issued a mattress and quilt. He carries the equivalent $75 dollars that. He is shown to his space in steerage which he describes as a pigsty. He is traveling with 1203 other Swedes headed to America.
The next stop is Hull, England, where he departs the ship and continues by train to Liverpool where he boards the Oceanic headed to New York. He experiences seasickness and crowded living conditions but finally on April 21 the ship arrives in New York harbor. I wish he had written his impression of seeing the statue of Liberty, but his diary is more focused on the activities of arrival.
Now it’s more than 100 years later and I am disembarking the ferry. Did he walk this same path? The building is huge, and we enter the giant hall filled with wooden benches. We have the benefit of being able to read the signs and guides who explain how to proceed. Arriving immigrants were documented and sent to the medical interview. It must have been chaotic with the language barriers. My grandfather had learned a bit of English while traveling from Hull to Liverpool, but I doubt it was enough.
We walked through corridors that once held long lines of immigrants but now contain displays of foreign money and I instantly see a Swedish krona in the display. It seemed like a maze, and we were told it took hours to get through and sometimes days if a person were held for any reason. Perhaps a health issue or lack of identification from the manifest.
Fortunately for my grandfather he gets through the proceedings without any issues and by the evening of April 22, 1902, he is walking the streets of New York city and spending his first night in an immigrant hotel at 10 Water Street. So, we take the ferry from Ellis Island to Battery Park and walk to that address. It is now an apartment complex.
As his diary progresses, he writes about taking the train from New York to Chicago. He mentions seeing Niagara Falls, which we had visited. I never realized when I was there that my grandfather had preceded me.
For me genealogy is not just about how far can I trace my family, but it is the stories and how they fit into history. For my grandfather it is the living out of the American dream. I doubt he had any idea of the opportunities he was giving his descendants, but I am thankful that he did.