Our trip to America was wonderful. In spite of all the predictions, our little Henry reached Salt Lake City very much alive. In fact, he gained weight on his trip over and was never sick one moment. On the ship he turned out to be the cook’s best customer. He drank his canned milk almost straight.
I enjoyed every minute of the trip, that is all but Ellis Island in New York. I had never been there before. We were a special case on account of Charlotte’s condition. She was wearing braces at the time and we were put at the end of the list. Saturday noon came, the office closed and we had not been called yet. That meant that we had to wait until the office opened again Monday morning. Not know the score, those were sad hours of waiting. Would we be admitted or sent back again?
I did a lot of praying in those long hours of waiting. So did my dear mother in Salt Lake City for she too had found out that we were being detained on the island. Neither did she know why. Monday we received our permission to enter without trouble after Charlotte had been examined and I questioned a lot.
Mother had worked very hard getting the money together for our trip. Friends loaned her some of the money and she took out a mortgage on her home for $500.00. What hurts though is she lost that home later because she could not meet the payments on the mortgage. It made me feel terrible but I was helpless.
The morning we arrived, Mother had a breakfast table set for a king. All that food! Was it possible to have so much food to offer? We just could not believe our eyes. Among the many food dishes on the table was a large bowl of boiled eggs. I took one egg, cut it in half, kept one part, and gave the other part to E.E. Everybody had watched me and all were laughing and wanting to know why I was so conservative. Then it was my turn to explain that we received one egg per month in Germany and naturally we always divided. That morning we each had one egg apiece.
Now the big problem to find work for E.E. faced us. … After many disappointments he came to a Mr. Claussen, an interior decorator and German. He told him to get a pair of painter overalls and report for work in the morning. Although he did not know a thing about painting, we were happy for him to get a start…Work was very scarce, income still scarcer, at times earning only $4.00 a week and most of the time not much more than that.
