Saturday, May 4, 2013

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Threads of Life

Weekend Writing Warriors
4 May 2013


I continue to write about the family of August Schumann and Auguste Freimann, his wife. These are my great grandparents. In this writing, both are deceased and the children are on their way to Canada with their maternal grandmother. This week it is again from the POV of Emma, oldest living sister of my grandmother. She is 14 years old at this time. The ship records lists her age as 10.

“I know how hard it was for Mother to afford food for us after she could no longer go to work. We sold everything that we owned from our home.  My uncles sent money for Grandma Caroline to bring us to Canada. We needed to have enough for trains and ships. We made a lot of hard toasted bread for us to eat on the way and only bought water to drink on the ship.  She talked to all of us before we left. In order to afford the ship, she would need to list our ages at much younger.  We were not supposed to talk to anyone as they might think we were older than she said. The agents argued with her, but she prevailed. “

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12 comments:

  1. Good research on your part, I see that too. I didn't 't ever think about them being cheaper. History Sleuth's writing mysteries.

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    1. So many of my family were so poor when they first came here. At this time, I only know of one who was not.There were many different ways that they managed to get here.

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  2. I'm enjoying this so much, Carol! Good post (again) :-)

    I didn't post this week. Just making my rounds because I didn't get back to everyone last week. :-)

    Have a good week. ;-)

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    1. I always look for you first, and thought that maybe you posted at the "tenth hour". So many of you do so much writing. I wish that I had time to read more also.

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  3. Great post. I tweeted.

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    1. Really? I don't even know the mechanics of tweeting these although I have a twitter account.

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  4. Wonderful story. Reminded me of stories I heard about the first of my family to come to the "new world."

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    1. We all have such wonderful stories within us. By the time we know them, we are old. Unless we write them down, the next generation misses some of this.

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  5. I'm enjoying this look into the past.

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    1. Thanks Elaine. Within my family, there were so many times that the link to me might have been lost due to poverty and death. I am so glad that my direct links made it. I appreciate the hardships they went through so much.

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  6. Oh wow, that was so sad. Good excerpt.

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