I seldom mention any familial affiliations in my posts. Yet, I
109 years ago this fall, my paternal grandfather immigrated to the United States of America.
My story, as most Americans, begins with immigrants, immigrants who were escaping their country to seek a better life. It does not matter whether it was war, famine, or something worse; they escaped and took their chances, hoping for a better life for themselves and for future generations. I cannot fathom what they would think of our situation in the United States now, closing our borders and saying that our country is “full.” It is shameful.
My paternal grandmother, Rose Rapacz, came to the United States without any ability to read or write in her native tongue, let alone speak English. She never attended school, yet I have a doctorate. I have achieved what she could only dream of as a child. In 1914, at the age eighteen, she escaped starvation and a difficult life, after watching a sibling kicked to death by her uncle on their farm, west of Warsaw. My great grandparents left her at the age of four years old and started another life in America, leaving her in the care of an uncle; gifting their farm for their children’s care.
My paternal grandfather came to the United States in 1910. He carefully calculated his exit before his 21st birthday. Josef Waszut sailed to America during the spring in 1910. He left his hometown of Istebna (then listed as part of Austria) that spring. Ship records list his nationality as Polish, whereas six years earlier, the passenger ship records listed his brother’s nationality as Slovenian. My grandfather boarded to S.S. Finland in Antwerp and arrived in the United States on May 31, 1910. He turned twenty-one aboard ship on May 23.
My grandfather listed his final destination as Port Arthur, Wisconsin, where his brother was living at the time. Entering the country through Ellis Island, he followed his brother George, who had sailed to America in 1906, and later settled in Minneapolis.
The remainder of the father’s family remained in Istebna, never to visit America. Over the years, the letters became less frequent and then ceased in their entirety. Wars came and went; yet the majority of the Waszut family remained in Istebna. Only a few years back, we received a brief note – in a shoebox destined for Minneapolis from Poland for Josef Waszut’s family. The shoebox message eventually found its way to my father.
My paternal grandmother and grandfather left all that was familiar to them for a better life, as immigrants traveling to America still do today. They never saw their family again, but each sought a better future for their children and grandchildren. They were part of the “tired, poor and huddled masses yearning to be free” that came and worked many of the jobs that established Americans refused to do – they were the common laborers.
It is difficult at this time not to think of the sonnet penned and committed to a bronze plaque that was once attached to the Statue of Liberty’s base:
“The New Colossus
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!”
To be continued…
