How Grandmother Came To America

"TRUE BLUE NEWS" Hudson, WI, Friday, March 6, 1914 Volume 15, No. 7

How Grandmother Came To America

by Georgia Fisher (1898 - 1973)

My cousin and I are fond of having grandmother tell us stories in the winter evenings. These stories are about grandmother’s and grandfather’s childhood days. One of the stories that she told us is as follows:

In the month of July and year of 1858 a sail ship sailed for the United States from a little German port named Bremenhaven, which is in the province of Hanover.

The people on board this ship were all Germans leaving this fatherland to go to their friends or relatives in the United States. Among these were two sisters, one thirteen years old and the other nineteen. Their parents had died several years before and they lived with their uncle until the younger finished school, when their brother wrote asking them to come to New York City.

There was and upper and lower deck on this ship where the staterooms or cabins were, grandmother, who was the youngest of the two girls, shared her room with her sister. This cabin, which was very small, and on the upper deck contained an upper and lower birth, a foot stool and a table, the person brought his own dishes on board. At meal time a waiter brought to each room the food, which consisted of soup, a little meat and some vegetables in a tin pail. Having only black tea to drink with the soup and contents of the pail it was what we would consider a very good meal.

The first week on board was a very lonesome and tedious one, as nearly all were homesick for those they had left in Germany and would probably would never see again. Grandmother was seasick the first day out but her sister was sick throughout the entire voyage. After this first long week had passed the old passengers became acquainted with each other and planned entertainments for the children, to cheer them and help pass the days away much faster.

Nothing of interest happened on the boat except the burial of an unknown man, who died of seasickness, at midnight. There being no minister on board the ship the captain read a few words from the Bible after which the passengers sang in unison several hymns and he was weighted and put over board.

After the voyage of seven weeks, which to the passengers seemed years, the boat landed at Castle Garden, New York. Grandmother’s brother met them at the harbor, from which they went to New York City, where grandmother and her sister stayed for five years. The brother then hearing of Hudson decided to leave immediately for Wisconsin.

Leaving their sister in New York with the other relatives, grandmother, her brother and his wife took the train to Sparta, Wis. From Sparta they hired a boat and after two days ride, arrived in Prescott from which they drove in a stage coach to Hudson where grandmother has lived ever since.

Sisters - Elizabeth and Marie Mispagel