I'd always known my grandfather was often impatient, and apparently was so as a young man. He didn't want to wait for the long visa process, so he just took off for America before his exit papers were in order, hoping to start the new year of 1911 in a new country. His diary "Meine Reise Nach Amerika" (My Trip to America), and letters to his sweetheart show that he almost didn't make it.
This is a repost, originally published on 12/28/10. Josef wrote both in his diary and to Lisi about his terror atop the train from Pressburg (Bratislava) to Vienna, one corroborating the other, but each using slightly different language. In [...]
Merry Christmas, Everyone—and Happy Holidays. I’m thinking of all of you celebrating with your families and the impressive posts and research so many in the family history and genealogy community have done over the past year to share their stories [...]
A century ago this summer, my grandmother, Elisabetha (Lisi) Ebner, was heading to America to meet and marry my grandfather, Josef Gartz. Her diary of the trip is often confusing because she intermixes train schedules, recipes, addresses, and meals. (See [...]
Train image from a Budapest Post Card Josef sent to Lisi in December, 1910, when he traveled toward Bremen. Lisi’s train probably looked similar It’s a mixed up world in Lisi’s diary. She knew her trip to America [...]