Ellis Island: Three Novels

by Joan Lowery Nixon

  A blast of the ship’s horn woke her, and she jumped from her bunk, startled and alert. Through the open hatch she could see that the sky was still dark, but it had that softly rubbed look that showed the first light of morning would soon be on its way.

  The horn from another ship sounded in the distance, and around Rebekah the people who were stirring began to move more quickly. Rebekah noticed that her mother’s cheeks were red with excitement. She’d decked herself in an embroidered blouse and skirt; Rebekah changed into her festive clothes as well, adding the long, lumpy jacket she was never without. She grabbed her shawl and without waiting for the others in her family to follow ran up to the deck.

  The air was clear, a fading moon low in the sky, and far on the horizon Rebekah, by squinting, could barely make out a dark, pencil-thin, irregular shape of land.

  Land! The United States! They had arrived!

  She raced down the stairs to her family. “I saw land!” she cried, and she heard others pick up the word and bounce it like an echo throughout the hold.

  “Come,” Mordecai said picking up his bundles. “We must all go on deck and get our first glimpse of our new country.”

  Elias tugged his coat around him. “We’ll see Avir soon,” he said, “most probably by this evening, and our new life will begin.”

  Together the Levinskys picked up their belongings and went on deck.

  As Rebekah reached for her mother’s hand, she felt her brother Nessin take her other hand and hold it tightly. She looked up and smiled at him, realizing with surprise that even Nessin was afraid of what was to come.

  The colors of the sky slid from gray into a pale blue, and small puffs of clouds in the eastern sky exploded with bright pinks and oranges. The ship entered a bay and suddenly was surrounded by other steamships, tall-masted ships with sails, barges, tugs, and boats both large and small. The main deck became crowded with the passengers from steerage jostling and shoving against each other. No one wanted to miss this first view of the United States.

  Members of the ship’s crew pushed their way through the crowd, handing out bills of lading to be attached to baggage. “Get your tickets out where they can be seen,” they ordered; after the crew came a ship’s officer with the manifest, checking every name. At his direction, a sailor then handed each passenger a stringed tag with a large printed number that corresponded to the number beside the passenger’s name on the manifest. Below it was a handwritten number that identified the manifest page.

  “Tie those tags to your clothing. Don’t lose them. Those are your landing tickets,” the sailor warned over and over.

  A small commotion caught Rebekah’s attention. A gate in the ship’s railing had been opened, and she could see and hear a tugboat thump snugly against the side of the ship. A ladder was let down, and up from the tug clambered a handful of men in uniform.

  “Inspectors!” people were whispering, and Rebekah’s heart began to beat loudly.

  One of the inspectors elbowed his way to the hatch and paused only long enough to hold a handkerchief over his nose before he descended. He soon bounded on deck again, asking one of the ship’s officers, “Any signs of cholera among the passengers? Smallpox? Yellow fever?”

  In spite of the officer’s denial, the inspectors walked among the steerage passengers, looking intently into faces, stopping occasionally to peer into bloodshot eyes or order a mouth to “open wide.” As an inspector approached, Rebekah tensed, but he gave the Levinskys only a cursory glance and moved on.

  Someone near the rail shouted, “There she is! The statue! The Statue of Liberty!” and the passengers turned to see the imposing figure they were approaching. Standing tall on her pedestal, gleaming in the early light, the points of her crown like those on a star, the lady raised high her torch of liberty.

  “ ‘Mother of Exiles,’ the poet Emma Lazarus called her,” Mordecai said. “ ‘Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.’ That’s all of us. ‘She lifts her lamp beside the golden door.’ In the United States we will become people of dignity.”

  Rebekah spotted Rose and Kristin at the rail. Unable to bear the rush of excitement alone, she squeezed through the crowd until she reached them and wrapped her arms around them as the ship sailed past the Statue of Liberty.

  Beyond the Statue of Liberty on the nearest shore were many buildings, but ahead of the ship an astounding series of tall, crowded buildings seemed to rise from the water. “That’s New York City,” a woman said, and Rebekah gasped.

  That was New York City? Impossible! How could anyone live in gigantic buildings like that? She thought of her small village, and the land she left behind—the farms with small vegetable gardens near their back doors. Where were the meadows and trees? What had Uncle Avir brought them to? How would they survive?

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  WHEN the ship docked, the first- and second-class passengers, who had gone through a quick inspection aboard ship, trotted down the gangplank, free to enter New York City. But the steerage passengers were ordered in numerous languages to hurry and collect their baggage, then return to the deck. And hurry!

  Hurry down the gangplank to the Customs Wharf for a quick examination of baggage. No one owned enough of value to make the need for a customs inspection worthwhile. Hurry to the ferryboats. Squeeze in tightly … even more tightly. And hurry! Rebekah, bent under her bundle of possessions slung across her back, wondered why they had to hurry just to stand still, crammed together, waiting to be told again to hurry.

  Rebekah searched the crowd for Rose and Kristin. She didn’t find them, but she saw Aaron standing near the rail, a rectangular wicker suitcase balanced easily on his shoulder. As she met his eyes he smiled, and she felt a surge of happiness.

  The ferryboat ride was a short one. As it approached Ellis Island, with its ornate, tower-studded gateway, a crewman threw a line to a dockhand, and the boat was soon tied to the hawsers on the dock. A short gangplank was put into place and someone called, “This way! Hurry! Hurry!”

  Rebekah winced, but she followed the others to an open area that was already jammed with people. “Now what do we do?” she mumbled aloud.

  “We wait,” a voice answered, and Rebekah looked up to see Rose. Joyfully, as though they’d been parted for years, they hugged each other.

  “Uncle Jimmy and I were on the ferry ahead of yours,” Rose said. “They have so many people to process on the inside of the building, we have to wait our turn out here.”

  Rebekah looked around. “Have you seen Kristin?”

  “She and her family were taken inside.”

  They were silent for a moment. Then Rebekah said, “I wonder what the inspection will be like.”

  “For one thing, they’ll ask many questions,” her grandfather volunteered.

  “What kinds of questions?”

  “Questions like those the officials asked back in Hamburg, but also questions to show you are smart enough to take care of yourself.”

  Leah interrupted. “We all have learned that Mr. Theodore Roosevelt is the president of the United States.”

  “Will they ask us the name of their president?”

  “I have no idea,” Leah answered impatiently, “but would it hurt to know?”

  As the morning passed, countless ferryboats ran back and forth from the piers to the island, depositing large numbers of immigrants from other ships. And now and then the doors to the huge brick building opened, gulping in those crammed nearest the doors, then closing again.

  Rebekah expected to walk into the building with Rose, but Rose and her uncle were the last of the group ahead of them to enter. A guard thrust out an arm, barring the Levinskys’ way, and the doors closed.

  “I’m hungry,” Sofia said.

  Rebekah was, too. They hadn’t eaten since the evening before, and it was now close to noon.

  She stood on tiptoe and again searched the hundreds of faces, trying to find Aaron, but this time she was unsuccessful. Even thou
gh he had come across the bay on a later ferry, surely he would have arrived by this time. He had to be on Ellis Island.

  In about forty minutes the doors opened again, and the guard shouted, “Step on through.”

  If I hear “hurry” just one more time, I’ll … But Rebekah didn’t have time to finish her thought before the guard said, “Come along now. And hurry!”

  They were herded into a massive, high-ceilinged hall that occupied the entire width of the building. Officials instructed them, in loud voices that reverberated throughout the room, to make sure a bill of lading was attached to each piece of baggage, then to leave their things among the already huge pile of wicker cases, carpetbags, trunks, and lumpy rugs and blankets that were stuffed with personal possessions.

  “Will our possessions be safe?” Leah whispered to Elias.

  “Hush,” Mordecai answered. “Don’t ask questions. Just do as they said and put down your bundle.”

  “But what about Elias’s sewing machine? It’s valuable. I don’t like to leave it here where we can’t keep an eye on it.”

  “Leah,” Mordecai said firmly, “do as they told us to do. We have no choice.”

  There was no time for Leah to protest, even if she had wanted to. The immigrants were directed into dozens of lines separated by metal railings, and although there were many more orders to hurry, the lines moved sluggishly.

  “Mama, I’m hungry!” Sofia suddenly wailed in Yiddish.

  As Leah bent to soothe her, a woman wearing a trim black coat and black feathered hat walked toward the Levinskys. “Are you Jewish?” she asked in Yiddish.

  “Yes,” Leah answered, not sure what to make of the question.

  The woman smiled. “My name is Esther Greenberg, and I’m from the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. I’m here to help you.” She opened the large canvas bag she carried on her left arm and pulled out a roll of fragrant rye bread, wrapped in paper. As she handed the roll to Sofia she said, “I wish I could feed all of you, right this moment, because I know how hungry you must be. At least I can tell you that in the dining hall upstairs, there is also a kosher kitchen. When you are taken there to be fed, all you have to do is tell them kosher food is what you want. They don’t provide a very large noon meal, but you’ll find plenty of sardines and rye bread.”

  Leah beamed, and Elias cried, “Kosher food again! How can we thank you!”

  “You don’t need to thank me,” Mrs. Greenberg said. “One of our members is here every day, and if you have any problems, don’t hesitate to call upon us.”

  As Mrs. Greenberg left the Levinskys to greet another group of people, Mordecai grinned. “You see? This country is wonderful. We’ll soon have our stomachs filled, and in a short time we’ll meet Avir. He’ll take us to our new home in New York City. We’ve done the right thing.”

  Slowly the lines of people moved toward a wide stairway. “Put your child down,” a guard directed a woman with a two-year-old girl in her arms.

  “But she’s exhausted,” the woman argued.

  The guard shook his head. He looked exhausted, too. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but everyone over the age of two has to walk. We have to make sure they can.”

  “Of course she can!” the woman said. Indignantly, she put her daughter on her feet.

  The little girl jumped up and down, wailing and, as people turned to stare, the mother looked as though she had suddenly realized where she was. Fear widening her eyes, she tried to hush her daughter.

  Rebekah knew what worried the woman. Passengers who had been through Ellis Island warned others who were planning to make the trip to do nothing to call attention to themselves. People who were boisterous, or who attempted to ease their tension with loud jokes, or who were noisy in any way were often rejected as being possible misfits in society.

  The child quieted in response to her mother’s whispered pleadings and began to climb the stairs.

  Mordecai took Rebekah’s arm for support, and they slowly followed the others in their family.

  It was not until they reached the head of the stairs that Rebekah saw that a group of inspectors had been watching the arrivals. One of the inspectors stepped forward and asked Mordecai, “Why are you limping?”

  Mordecai’s eyes opened in surprise. “When I was young a horse kicked my leg. The wound soon healed, but I’ve limped ever since.”

  The inspector raised his hand to Mordecai’s left shoulder and wrote a large letter L with chalk.

  “What does this mean?” Mordecai asked.

  “The L stands for lameness,” the inspector said. “Your leg will be checked by one of our doctors after you have gone through the rest of the medical examination.”

  “I have lived with this limp for a long time,” Mordecai began, but the inspector had turned away and was speaking to an elderly woman whose back was humped with age. Quickly he wrote a large letter B on her shoulder and moved on to another immigrant.

  Mordecai’s forehead wrinkled with worry. Rebekah was frightened, too, but she said, “Grandfather, this is nothing to be afraid of. A doctor will just look at your leg. That’s all they want … just to take a look and make sure that you were telling the truth.”

  “Identification cards,” an attendant called over and over. “Have them out where they can be stamped.”

  This process, at least, was a quick one, and Rebekah followed her family into the central gangway partitioned into aisles by more metal dividers. At the beginning of each aisle stood an immigration doctor. Rebekah could see other doctors standing about thirty feet down the aisles, where the dividers turned in a sharp right angle.

  “Walk slowly,” another attendant instructed the group. “Keep about ten to fifteen feet apart. And remove anything that covers your head.”

  Rebekah pulled off her kerchief, as did Sofia and their mother, and each of the men in the Levinsky family removed their black, brimmed hats.

  “Take off the skullcap, too,” the doctor said to Nessin, who was the first Levinsky in line. “We must look for scalp diseases.” But instead of doing so he examined Nessin’s face and turned his head to study his profile. “Move on,” he ordered. “Let me see you walk.”

  The rest of the Levinskys passed the doctor’s cursory examination with no trouble, even Jacob, who was thin and pale after his long bout with seasickness. The doctor sent Mordecai on for the rest of the examination, but Rebekah saw him stop and watch her grandfather carefully as he limped down the aisle.

  Rebekah took Mordecai’s hand and held it tightly, wanting to reassure herself that everything would turn out all right, but she was frightened.

  The doctor who stood at the bend in the aisles checked scalps for favus, a highly contagious fungus. In addition, he felt throats, looking for possible goiters, and studied skin that was unusually flushed, asking, “Have you ever had trouble breathing? Any pains in your chest?” Rebekah saw that he had written with his stick of chalk on others ahead of them in line: an H for a heart and an SC for scalp. On a woman who was expecting a child he wrote PG, just as if her condition weren’t obvious to everyone.

  Rebekah sniffed, but her disdain turned to sudden fear as the doctor reached up to the shoulder of an angry man, who had begun to shout and wave his arms, and drew an X with a circle around it. An attendant pulled the man from the line and led him away.

  “Ohhh!” Rebekah heard someone gasp. “That mark means insanity.”

  “What if the man was just angry?” Rebekah asked Mordecai. “What if the doctor asked him questions he couldn’t understand?”

  Mordecai sighed, and the two of them huddled closer to each other.

  The doctor frowned at the mark on Mordecai’s coat, and he peered at him closely as Mordecai answered questions and went through his physical examination.

  At the end of the lines Rebekah saw other doctors standing, examining each immigrant’s eyes. A large window was behind them, and the sunlight that poured through the window apparently helped the doctors in their examination.
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br />   The doctors spoke to each person in line, asking questions about eyesight. They peered into each pair of eyes. Then, with small instruments that looked like buttonhooks, they everted the eyelids, searching for signs of trachoma or other illnesses.

  Sofia let out an indignant yelp and pulled away. “That hurts!” she complained.

  “I know, but it’s necessary,” the doctor told her. “Now, be a good girl and stand still so I can examine your other eye.”

  “No!” Sofia said.

  With a scowl, the doctor stared up at Leah, and she trembled. “Sofia! Do what the doctor tells you!” she cried out in a voice so terrified that Sofia obeyed without question.

  As the doctor finished his examination of Sofia he wiped the buttonhook on a towel, dipped his fingers into an antiseptic solution, then went on to examine Leah. Again, he dipped his fingers and examined Rebekah. All of them, including Mordecai, passed the eye examination without question.

  “Now can we eat?” Sofia demanded.

  No one bothered to answer, since they were immediately directed into a new line. One at a time, the immigrants were seated opposite inspectors who sat behind a row of desks. As the inspectors filled out official-looking government forms they asked countless questions: What is your full name? Your age? Your sex? Are you married or single? What is your calling or occupation? Nationality? Are you a polygamist? Have you ever been in prison or an almshouse? Were you ever supported by charity?

  Elias, as head of the family, was first, and he answered many questions that covered the rest of his family, but he hesitated when the inspector asked, “Do you have a job?”

  “Yes,” he said, then immediately, “No.”

  “Which is it?” the inspector asked.

  “My brother lives in New York City,” Elias told him. “He said he would get me a job and a place for my family to live, so I assume he has done this, but I don’t know where or what the job is.”