ILMASSAC-L Archives
Archiver > ILMASSAC > 2005-01 > 1105303069
From: Bill <>
Subject: Little Egypt Heritage, 9 January 2005, Vol 4 #02
Date: Sun, 09 Jan 2005 15:37:49 -0500
Little Egypt Heritage Articles
Stories of Southern Illinois
© Bill Oliver
9 January 2005
Vol 4 Issue: #02
ISBN: pending
Osiyo, Good Evening Ladies and Gentlemen of Little Egypt,
Every year the Harris Pollsters ask folks for their favorite leisure
time activity. Virtually every year the top three answers are the same
[or at least for the last ten years]. First is reading; second is
watching TV; and third is spending time with family and their children.
This year the percents were 35, 21 and 20. What interested me was the
increase in reading [10%] matched the decrease in TV watching. Me thinks
this speaks volumes for our TV choices. However, it certainly is nice
that liking “kids” is still in the top three. [grin]
Reading is exciting! Also, there is always an element of fact in family
heritage. One of my families handed down a story that Great Great
Grandma Reiman had to become a Governess and teach the household
children to earn enough money for the family to continue their journey
from New York to Nebraska, because the “money changers” cheated them
when they arrived. Cousin Daisy, this one is for you.
In order to leave the east coast in 1849 to rush to the gold fields in
California, one could travel cross continent by traveling to Baltimore
via passenger ship. From there to board a railroad to Cumberland,
Maryland. A stagecoach would take you over the Cumberland Mountains to
the Monongahela River, where you would board a steamboat to Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania. Another steamboat would take you down the Ohio River to
the Mississippi and Saint Louis, Missouri. One more steamboat ride up;
the Missouri River and you arrived in Independence, Saint Joseph, or
Council Bluffs.
After outfitting yourself for crossing The Great American Desert, travel
would probably be by ox-drawn wagon from there. If you left the coast in
early spring, say April, you might reach the plains in six weeks or so,
and with lots of luck arrive in the gold fields by the Fourth of July.
Our [Daisy’s and mine] ancestors left Switzerland in December 1799 by
taking a train to LeHarve, France and from there by ship to England.
Then by ship again to New York. In the thirty years since the gold
fields attracted transcontinental travel, train travel became the main
mode of travel.
Karl and Klementina Reiman and their five young children left
Wölflinswil, Aargau, Schweiz in December 1879. They first traveled by
Swiss train and changed to a French train to LeHarve. After a day
layover, they boarded a ship bound for Liverpool, England. Another
layover and they then boarded a ship bound for New York.
In a letter she wrote “back home” Klementina relates that within an hour
of sailing from LeHarve everyone developed “the nausea”, but that the
children had gained their “sea legs” by the next day. She further states
that from Liverpool to New York the seasickness returned for all but two
of the seventeen days that they were upon the water. Waves washed over
the decks and entered their quarters filling it with two feet of water.
I don’t imagine that water washing back and forth in the space helped
them overcome “the nausea”.
Great Great Grandma wrote that they left the sea on the fourth day of
the New Year saying, “Oh how happy we were to set our step on the earth.”
GGGrandma made a point of saying that it was expensive to travel in
“Nach Amerika”. After exchanging their currency on the pier in New York
they should have had enough money to complete their travel and have
enough left over to purchase materials for their new life. Staying
overnight in New York, lodging, dinner and breakfast cost them $1.50
each. They boarded a train for “Schigago” which took two days and two
nights. In Chicago they again had a day layover.
GGGrandma Klementina wrote that Chicago was a big city, that GGGrandpa
Karl’s watch said it took them one hour from leaving the station until
they were out of the city.
It took another two days and two nights to arrive in “Recklau,
Nabraska”. Translation: Red Cloud, Webster county, Nebraska. They
arrived “ruined” [translation: bankrupted], using up all their money.
GGGrandma expressed it as feeling “so lost in this strange land where
almost everybody spoke English.”
Some congenial person took them to a place where there were some Swiss
people and from that moment on GGGrandma became a staunch “promoter” of
America telling all the “at home” relatives how wonderful the place and
people were and that they should consider immigrating. They stayed with
this community until the father and two older boys did chores and the
women helped out in the kitchen for enough “board”, so that Karl and the
two older boys could seek out a German Catholic community in which to
settle and make their new life. St Stephens in Nuckolls county was such
a community and that is where they settled.
Research has shown that the Reimans left their Swiss home with more than
enough money to reach Nebraska. We who have researched this journey now
speculate that the money changers in New York did truly “short change”
them in the exchange of currency, leaving them with very little money at
the end of their journey. The Governess story may be part of their
stopover where the Swiss family lived in either Guide Rock or Blue Hill
in Webster county. We now know that they did work to earn money for
their final trek to St Stephens. We also know that the spirit of
neighborliness existed, for someone loaned Karl mules to plow his first
acres. The family was successful in their immigration. Before Karl died,
one of his sons purchessed for cash a section of land in southwestern
Nebraska.
e-la-di-e-das-di ha-wi nv-wa-do-hi-ya nv-wa-to-hi-ya-da.
(May you walk in peace and harmony)
Wado,
Bill
-=-
PostScript:
= = = =
http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/SOIL
http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/ILMASSAC
http://www.usgennet.org/usa/ne/state/BillsArticles/LittleEgypt/intro.html
This thread: