Familiengeschichten / family stories

Perhaps I also didn't tell you some of the circumstances of my grandfather Heinrich's coming to America. He was soon to turn 21 years old and would have to go to the military and his mother didn't want that for him. In the middle of the night she and he walked to another village where no one would know him and she put him on the train to Bremen, Germany. She had arranged his passage on the train and also on a ship, the Gneisenau, to New York City and again a train ride to Minneapolis, Minnesota where his brother Joseph was already. When he crossed the border into Germany he made himself vomit so the border guards left him alone and did not check his papers or he probably would not have been allowed to continue his journey. He told me that he had to wait awhile in Bremen while they converted a cargo ship so that it could take passengers. He was in a room with lots of stinky old men so he thought if he took the top bed up near the ceiling he would be away from the smell, but he found out too late that the smell rises in the air so it was a very long voyage for him. I often told him when I grew up I would bring him back to Austria to visit but he never wanted to come. I think he was afraid that he would still be in trouble after all those years because he ran away from the Army.