A few years ago, as I was preparing for my daughter, who was 19 at the time, to head over to Hong Kong for a year of study abroad, I got to thinking about my Great Grandma Anna Halper Wagner, who at age 19 left her home in Hungary to travel to the United States to begin a new life. I already shared her story in Post #20, but here I want to share the poem I wrote back in Fall 2018:
I Wish I Got to Know Her
In 1913,
at the tender age of 19,
she came to this new country
with twenty-six dollars in hand,
passing through Ellis Island,
leaving her family behind
in Orallas, Hungary,
never to return.
She must have wondered about them,
missed them,
worried about them.
She must have felt torn.
In Chicago, she joined up
with others like her,
crowded into single family homes
bursting at the seams at times
with four families crowded in –
Justine, Bishop, and Laflin,
all streets welcoming immigrants to Chicago –
to neighborhoods made up of
Germans and Poles and Lithuanians
and others who sought
the American dream –
others who believed that
“money fell from trees” –
but often found
The Jungle instead.
At some point
she met my great grandfather –
also an immigrant from Hungary –
and they married,
still living on Bishop Street,
but eventually in their own home.
There, they raised my grandfather,
who died at 52 of a heart attack
(probably from working too long
around toxic chemicals),
a daughter
who died too young of epilepsy,
another son
who died too young of tuberculosis –
or perhaps it was alcoholism –
and a daughter who lived to
a ripe old age: my great aunt.
I do remember meeting her
when I was very young –
the smell of the house overwhelming
my antiseptic senses,
her accent still thick,
nearly every surface covered
with crocheted doilies,
piled up with the many treasures
she had accumulated from
nearly sixty years of living
on the often stifling streets of
Cook County, Chicago.
My mom most remembers
her generosity.
Though she’d spent much of her life
in poverty,
she was always ready to give
to those around her.
She also remembers a few German phrases –
though no one I know who speaks German
ever recognized them.
Perhaps it was some Orallas slang -
or maybe it was Hungarian.
While still new to the country,
she watched the U.S. go to war
against her home country,
where undoubtedly she still had relatives.
She must have wondered about them,
missed them,
worried about them.
She must have felt torn.
During World War II,
while facing prejudice
against Germans at home,
she sent her oldest son off to fight
far away in Italy.
What he saw, what he experienced,
he would never talk about.
My mother heard none of his stories.
I wonder if his mother ever did?
What did he write to her
in his letters home?
She must have wondered about him,
Missed him,
Worried about him.
She must have felt torn.
Later, she welcomed
four grandchildren,
Dorothy, John, Michael, and Tracey,
and three great grandchildren,
Tonya, Cameron, and Andrew,
to her Justine Street home,
watching her family line
live on in this country
where she had learned
money didn’t fall from trees,
but that didn’t mean
you couldn’t still hope.
While none of her own children
attended college,
two of her grandchildren did –
and all of her great grandchildren.
Now, more than forty-four years
after her death,
I think she would be happy
to meet her six great-great grandchildren
and to learn that among them,
one shares her name:
my daughter, Anna Rose.
I wish she could have met her.
I think she could have liked her spunk,
her spirit, her determination,
her drive, and her courage …
as she prepares to travel
across a different ocean,
also at the age of 19,
leaving her family behind,
boarding a plane alone,
to pursue her own dreams
in a far off land.
I know I will wonder about her,
miss her,
worry about her.
I know I’ll feel torn.
But I also know
that by venturing out,
we often find ourselves,
find the lives
we were meant to lead.
So, I’ll have to let her go …
just as all those Orallas parents
had to let their own children go
so long ago.
What stories I’m sure
Great Grandma Anna could tell,
if I ever got to know her.
Tune in next time as I return to the family letters from the mid-1800's that helped kickstart this project. I'll be sharing an excerpt from Missouri Daughter, Chapter 7, where the Hale family in Andrew County, Missouri, receives another letter from a friend who headed to California during the Gold Rush: Elias Edwards. Elias chose to stay in California and writes about California's scenery, its social scene, and its "scarcity of young ladies."
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