Elizabeth Koletzky received a
University Undergraduate Runner-Up
Award. She is sophomore at
South Dakota
State University in Brookings, SD
and is in the pre-nursing program
there. She plans to be accepted into
the nursing program next spring. Her
parents, Keith and Renee Koletzky,
and her little sister, Kiera, live
in
Sioux Falls,
SD. Some of
her interests include cooking,
crocheting (which grandma Ida taught
her), chess, tennis, and mystery
novels. Elizabeth is a former 1st place
winner in the Black Hills Chapter
Essay Contest. She wrote her
essay to learn more about the
history of her family and would like
to thank her grandparents, Joe and
Ida Engelhardt, for their support
and excellent family records.
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The Journey Worth
Traveling
Is Never Too Far
July 23, 1902
Dear Diary
Today is my 15th
birthday! I was hoping and praying that we would be in America
by my birthday, or even see some land, but father says it will
be another few days before we get to Ellis Island where we will
register to be Americans.
It seems like
we have been on this ship forever, but actually it has only been
about 12 days. Water everywhere. I had no idea an ocean could
be so big.
We left Russia
July 10th. The pamphlet we received with our tickets said the
trip to America is usually about 15, days but can be as many as
3 to 4 weeks under the worse weather conditions. Father said
that with the smaller, older ships, this same journey could take
as long as 12 weeks. 1 I don’t know how people
survived that long of a trip.
Actually, we
are pretty lucky. My father is wealthy enough to be able to
purchase 2nd class tickets. I heard someone talking
about the conditions of the lower class deck. The women sleep
in one area and the men in another. I also heard them talking
about rats, head bugs, constant seasickness from the stench and
lack of circulation in the lower decks. There are also rumors
of typhus.2 Maybe they are exaggerating. Oh I hope
there are exaggerating.
Elizabeth Koletzky receiving her own UU Division
Runner-Up
award. Her grandparents, Joe & Ida Engelhardt and her parents,
Keith & Renee Koletzky, also on the stage with Elizabeth
Our
quarters are small, not even as big as my bed loft at home, or
what used to be my home anyway. The bunks are hard and
everything has a salty-musty smell. I have been lucky. I have
had very little sickness but mother is sick almost daily and
only feels well enough to eat on the calmest of days.
We
are on a ship called the Pennsylvania. I guess it’s considered a
pretty big ship. (It’s definitely prettier to look at from the
dock than from the inside.) One of the crewmembers said she can
go up to 14 knots. Father said that was about 15
miles an hour on land. There are about 250 crew members, 300 1st
and 2nd class passengers and well over 2,000 people
in 3rd class in steerage.2
Oh,
I hope America is as wonderful as the stories I have heard; but
even if it’s not, it still has to be better than Odessa, where I
was born and where my family has lived for the past 2
generations. When my great grandparents moved from Germany to
Russia, there was so much hope for a better future. Grandfather
told me that there was much religious persecution in Germany,
and they believed they would be free to worship as they wished.
The living conditions have steadily gotten worse and we have
suffered much because Russia was never our country. It belongs
to Russians, and they let us Germans know that we were
unwelcome, even though Empress Catherine II invited my ancestors
to come.3 But that was a long time ago, and over the
years, there is little evidence of the promises made.
My father is a
merchant. We had a small shop that mostly sold the basic
necessities. My mother always hoped we could expand to offer
some nicer things, things that weren’t purchased just for
survival. That never happened. My father said that most of his
customers owed him money for just the basic necessities. He
wasn’t going to go further into debt selling non-essential goods
on credit.
He really is
too kind hearted to be a merchant. He has a soft spot for
parents with small children and widows. He always extends them
credit when he knows he shouldn’t.
My 16th
birthday will be in America!!
Maybe by then
we will be settled on our own land.
Maybe we will
have a house built.
Maybe mother
will bake me an apple pie.
I wonder if
they have the same kind of apples that we had in Russia.
Oh, I hope
America is everything I have dreamed of. I hope America will be
our new home for my children, and many generations to follow.
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