Coming to America – Bob Lifferth
On Tuesday, October 18, 1921, when Henry was seven months old, E.E., Gretchen, Charlotte, and Henry boarded the ship, the George Washington, the same ship that President Woodrow Wilson traveled on. Travelers were divided into groups of 30 for listing on manifests. Each manifest list recorded the passenger’s manifest number, name, gender, age, marital status, ethnicity and place of residence. One manifest list showed the first four as follows:
Name Gender Age Married Ethnicity Place of Residence
- Lifferth, Ernst M 32y M Germany Gotha, Germany
- Lifferth, Gretchen F 26y M Germany Gotha, Germany
- Lifferth, Charlotte F 4y S Germany Gotha, Germany
- Lifferth, Heinrich M 7m S Germany Gotha, Germany
The remaining 26 names on this manifest were also all from Germany.
Before departure, passengers were given a 4½” x 6 ¼” “Inspection Card” with the under title of Immigrants and Steerage Passengers listing the port and date of departure, the name of the ship, the immigrant’s name, and their last residence. These cards show that the Lifferths departed from Bremen[1] in northern Germany near the North Sea.
E.E.’s card was stamped with the number 19 8802, but Gretchen’s did not bear this stamp. Both cards were stamped with “George Washington,” the date of departure “18. Okt. 1921,” “Specially Examined,” “United States Public Health Service,” and “U.S. Public Health Service Ellis Island, N.Y.C.”
The back of the card had the printed word “Vaccinated” in addition to the instruction, “Keep this Card to avoid detention at Quarantine and on Railroads in the United States” printed in eight languages. The backs of E.E. and Gretchen’s cards also had three stamps: “Deloused,” “Bathed,” and “Consulado De Espana—Bremen.”
The ship George Washington left port from Bremerhaven on Tuesday, October 18, 1921, and arrived in New York and Ellis Island eleven days later, on October 29, 1921. As shown on the inspection cards, E.E. and his family were steerage passengers, which meant they traveled in the least expensive accommodations. They slept and, for the most part, traveled below the deck, but they were allowed on deck if they wanted to go there. They enjoyed going out on the deck and watching the sun set on the ocean ahead of them each night….
[1] The actual port was likely in Bremerhaven, which has a harbor to the sea, while the city of Bremen sits a short distance inland on the River Weser; this river empties into the sea at Bremerhaven.
