Remembering

Here's my first entry for Foto finish.  The theme is "travel"  I haven't traveled much, so this is from the trip we took to Ellis Island. This eagle is over the entrance to one of the main  buildings that immigrants were shuffled through when they arrived here. My Great Grandmother went through this very building and I had goosebumps and teary eyes as I walked up the steps and through the building. She traveled here alone when she was 20 in 1911. She came to find work as a seamstress and to send money back to Italy to her ill mother and to bring her sister over as well.

This is me pointing to my Great Grandmother's name that is engraved on the memorial wall at Ellis Island. 

I never knew my Great Grandmother, but I'm close with my Grandmother and grew up with stories of what a strong woman my Great Grandma was.  I called my Grandma from this spot, looking at her mother's name, looking out at New York and the Statue of Liberty. I was teary eyed and touched as I thought of this strong, young woman traveling alone to a strange country, with God knows what awaiting her. She did not have an easy life. She worked as a seamstress and did marry, but her husband was abusive, so she took her five children and started a new life on her own.  My grandmother learned to sew from her and while I taught myself to sew, I know that some of that comes from them.