All in a Life-Time #227547

I remember vividly the excitement in our household that was provoked by this momentous decision. Whatever may have been the doubts and heartburnings of our parents, to us children all was a joyous Vista. We were happy at the thought of travelling to that far land of golden promise and strange people; we had visions only of adventure, and we were the envy of our playmates who were not to share with us the voyage across the Atlantic Ocean or the excitement of life in America. The two eldest brothers and one of my sisters went ahead of us and established a home in Brooklyn. They wrote back their first impressions of New York; its great buildings and its crowded wharves; its masses of busy people hastening through the maze of streets and the novelty (to us) of horse cars pulled through the streets on railroad tracks. These letters gave us fresh thrills of emotion and new material for our active fancies. Then my father abandoned his now unprofitable business, sold his factories and home, packed our household goods and furniture, and possessed of about thirty thousand dollars in cash — all that remained of his fortune — led his wife and remaining eight children upon the expedition. I well remember the journey down the Rhine to Cologne, where we visited the beautiful cathedral before we took the train to Bremen; the solemn interview in the latter city at the offices of the North German Lloyd, where the last formalities were disposed of; and finally settling in our cabins of the slow old steamer Hermann as she put forth on her way across the wide Atlantic.