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By William Kent Brunette
This article is a work in progress.
More than 40 percent -- or over 100 million -- of all living Americans can trace their roots to an ancestor who came through Ellis Island. That's because during its six decades of operation, this immigrant depot processed the greatest tide of incoming humanity in our country's history. Fleeing hardships such as poverty, religious persecution, or political unrest in their homelands, some twelve million immigrants came to Ellis Island in search of freedom and opportunity in the United States.
By the time it closed its doors on November 29, 1954, Ellis Island had also served as a hospital for wounded servicemen during both of the world wars, a Coast Guard training facility, as well as a detention and deportation center for undesirable aliens. For over thirty years after its closure, Ellis Island quietly deteriorated in New York harbor. The elements took their toll; ivy and vines shielded many of the buildings from view. Located only a few hundred yards north of Liberty Island where the Statute of Liberty has been welcoming the "tired, weary, and huddled masses" to America for years, the abandoned Ellis Island stood as an eerie and constant reminder of its unique role in American history.
After a $170 million restoration, the Main Building and the Ellis Island Immigration Museum were completed in September 1990. Two additional buildings were restored in 1995. While Ellis Island is one of the country's most historic sites, it's also now one of the country's most heavily visited national monuments. Visitors often stand in line at one of two little ticket booths in Battery Park at the southern most tip of Manhattan to purchase $6 round-trip ferry tickets that will take them first to Liberty then to Ellis Island. They then wait in another line at water's edge for their turns to board the boats.
As many people in Robertson County are all too painfully aware, several years ago I started researching my family's roots for a book I'm writing. So, I've been contacting relatives, public officials, and even total strangers in search of whatever tidbits of information they may have or can lead me to. With family members in tow, I have been scribbling notes while walking through cemeteries, have run out of gas while traveling Robertson County's back roads, have been driving up into people's yards and wandering around their pastures to learn as much about my family's history as possible. Although some people have been skeptical at first, everybody has been very kind and very helpful. My dad and I even discovered that the house where he was born, on the "old Day place" (as he calls it) east of New Baden towards Camp Creek, not only still exists, but has been meticulously restored.
It was this search for my family's roots that found me standing in line in Battery Park in New York City on a peaceful weekday summer morning recently waiting for my opportunity to visit Ellis Island. Since many of my ancestors are of German descent, I gravitated towards a group of fair-haired German tourists who kept jabbering away in their native tongue. As the crowded ferry left the dock, I tried to imagine what it must have been like on that fateful December day some 116 years ago when the crowded steamer Rhaetia arrived in New York harbor from Hamburg. While our journey to Liberty Island would take a short 17 minutes, the trip Jacob and Marie Dieckmann (my great grandparents) and their six-month-old daughter Annie took in 1884 lasted a grueling 17 days. I took a deep breath of the salty sea air, closed my eyes, and took in the sounds of the waves lapping against the boat.
It was only when the Germans stopped talking that I opened my eyes and saw her -- the Statute of Liberty. A hush fell over the crowd. The only sounds you could hear were cameras taking pictures. With her golden torch raised high, Lady Liberty was magnificent. My, what my ancestors must have thought when they caught their first glimpses of her, as their steamer got closer to her, as their boat slipped quietly past her, and as it docked a mere stone's throw away. What a way to greet the hordes of people to the country that would soon become their new homeland!
I skipped getting off the ferry at Liberty Island and headed for Ellis Island, the site of the old immigrant depot. All over Ellis Island you can almost hear the muffled voices of generations of immigrants who came to this country. You can stand on the second-floor balcony of the massive Registry Room with its high vaulted ceiling and arched windows and imagine the rows upon rows of immigrants sitting on the benches below, speaking in different languages with immigration officials standing behind large oak desks, trying to convince them of their worthiness to remain in this country. You can see the flight of stairs with three very distinct partitions descending towards the baggage room. The section on the left was for immigrants staying in New York; the one on the right, for people going to other places in the United States. The dreaded center row was for the folks who didn't make the initial cut to either be evaluated further or deported.
Since Jacob and Marie obviously passed the test, I retraced their steps by descending the stairs on the right, going through the baggage room, and heading to the rail ticket office where they either redeemed coupons for their rail tickets or purchased them. Out the doors and through the windows behind where the railroad ticket counters once stood, I could see people gathering at "The American Immigrant Wall of Honor." This unique exhibit displays the names of hundreds of thousands of immigrants representing individual family heritages central to the peopling of America. I raced out to find my relatives.