PASSENGER

SHIPS

The immigration stories of our grandparents
and the ships they arrived on.
Brauti
Hirtz
Hvidston
Johnson
Levorson
Mitchell

Torstein (Tom) Levorson:

"I sailed from Norway in March of 1911 on the ill-fated Lusitania. The crossing from Liverpool to New York took eight or nine days. This was longer than usual, as we participated in a sea rescue when we came upon a boat about to capsize in heavy seas. I sailed with all my possessions packed in one suitcase and a Hardunger violin under my arm. My intention then was to return to Norway in five years and to seal my promise of return, I took some colored string, wound it around the knob of my bed post saying, "There, this string will stay there until the day I return to remove it".

The Lusitania was a British ocean liner which was sunk by a German submarine on 7 May 1915. The 32,000 ton ship was returning from New York to Liverpool with 1,959 passengers and crew on board of which 1,198 people were drowned.

Ellis Island was the primary reception depot for immigrants to the United States between 1900 and 1924. Often 5000 immigrants a day passed through Ellis Island. All immigrants received a "six second medical" - a visual inspection. Those who had to be further examined were marked with chalk and directed to an examination room. For legal inspection, newcomers lined up with fellow passengers in rows. Each wore a tag with two numbers referring to the page and line on the ship's manifest where his name appeared. If an immigrant failed to answer inspections properly, he was sent to the special inquiry rooms. Detainees slept in dormitories that separated men from women and children.

As it happened, he was not to return to his homeland for 44 years and then only as a visitor - the bed and colored string long since gone.

Tone (Toni) Brauti:

In July 1929, a young woman, Toni Brauti, emigrated to Canada with her sister Dordi. She reminisces on the circumstances that were to change and define her life on that day when she sailed on the Bergensfjord Liner destined for Halifax.  Her youngest brother Sigmund was born after she left and she did not meet him until he was grown up.

"I was born in Kviteseid, Norway on 15 September 1912, the third oldest of 11 children.  I, too, vowed to return to Norway in five years. However, with the country plunged in a depression, the dream of a return to Norway became an impossibility. By train, Dordi and I arrived in Winnipeg where immigration officials made the decision as to where we were to be sent. Ribbons pinned to our coat designated that we spoke no English, had no friends or relatives in Canada, and that we had no job and no place to go. Ole Sondrol, a farmer at Battrum, had written to the department requesting a hired girl. I filled the bill, so off to Battrum I went to my first job in Canada. Gunhild Sondrol, Ole's wife, and I were to become lifelong friends as a result of my first job on the Sondrol farm. It was there I met Tom Levorson and we were married 22 July 1930 (in Moose Jaw)."

Robert Borthwick Mitchell:

In the town of Annon, Scotland, lived R. B. Mitchell Sr. (1881 - 1934) and family. Robert Borthwick Mitchell married Isabella Johnston (1874-1958) in February 1897 and had six children (Lawrence, Ina, Robert, John, Tibby & Polly).

The oldest son Robert (Bob) and his friends David Steel and Tom Byres (alias Tom Thumb) were pals who decided to go to Canada, and to get the money for the fare went out at nights to catch rabbits and sell them. The fare having been raised, they all bought their ticket. Bob took ill with rheumatic fever before the departure date and the doctor would not allow him to go until he was better. Rather than lose the money for the fare, his brother Lawrence used the ticket and set sail for Canada on the S.S. Saturnia - third class - on the 6^th June 1923. Lawrence listed his object in going to Canada as "to work and settle". The three arrived in Canada and went to Manitoba where the three of them split up.

Tom Thumb headed to the forests and was soon arrested for setting fire to the forest and his parents were contacted to come and get him. They arrived in Canada and remained there. David Steel’s whereabouts are not known. Lawrence worked in Manitoba until Bob arrived some months later. His sister Ina remembers Bob walking across the Solway viaduct from Annan to where she worked in Cumberland to say cheerio to her before he set off for Canada. Eventually Lawrence returned to Scotland and Bob moved on to Saskatchewan.

Bob set sail on the S.S. Montcalm, leaving from Glasgow, Scotland on March 14, 1925 and arriving at St. John New Brunswick on March 22^nd. He was listed as a farm worker. His brother Lawrence was living at Eden, Manitoba. His father was living at No. 2 Holding, Baurch. Rigg. Gretna. He had $50. In his possession. Bob arrived in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in the spring of 1925 and found work with a farmer in Boissevain, Manitoba. The farmer also had land in Lucky Lake, Saskatchewan. His brother, Joe Berezowski, farmed this land and he needed a hired hand. Bob got the job and moved to Lucky Lake in the spring of 1926. He also worked on the roads in the Greenbrier District and later for the Andrew Sliminsky family. (Note: Some of the Sliminsky family changed their name to Saunders.)

While working at the Sliminsky place he met and married Lucy Hirtz on 12 November 1928.

Lucy Hirtz with her parents John and Margaret Hirtz:

In 1952 John Hirtz sat down to record his story as a immigrant. Unfortunately, he did not finish it. The first paragraph alludes to a very interesting glimpse of history.

"In the year of 1913, in the month of March, the Red Star Liner Finland moved slowly past the Statute of Liberty in her dock at the Harbour of New York, carrying some 1200 immigrants which assembled 15 days before at the Harbour of Antwerp in Belgium. These immigrants coming from nearly every country in Europe - Frenchmen, Belgium, from Holland and Germany. The first day out at sea, they grouped together and you could notice them by their actions. The Germans singing and playing the accordions, those from Switzerland yodelling and the French enjoyed themselves by emptying a few bottles of wine some of their relatives put in their bags before departing. And now, 15 days later, with heavy hearts and expectations, they embark in the promised Land America - there wasn't one of all the immigrants who had more than 100 dollars in their pockets. Very few could speak one word of English."

John (Jean) Hirtz was born in the small village of Bigonville, Luxembourg on June 7, 1887. He was the eldest son (third born) of a family of twelve children born to Caroline (nee Schuller) and Pierre Henri Hirtz. His birth certificate shows that his father was a 28 year old farmer and his mother a 27 year old housewife.

After graduating from public school, he went to the Agriculture College, Forestry Branch at Ettelbruck, Luxembourg (1904-06). While at the College, he was decorated by the government of Luxembourg for saving the life of a child from drowning. He graduated as a forester on 5 April 1906. He then started as a telegraph operator, and later entered the railroad services as a conductor.

John married Marguerite Goebel on 28 July 1908 in Diekirch, Luxembourg. Marguerite was born on 18 February 1883 at Bastendorf Diekirch, Luxembourg, the youngest daughter of a family of four. Her father Mathias Goebel (1838 - 1886) and mother (nee) Anna Marie Dillenburg (1844-1910) lived at Kayl, Martelange, Wallendorf, Paris and Diekirch.

Of this union of John and Marguerite were born two daughters. The oldest, Lucy Anne Marie, was born at Diekirch in northern Luxembourg on 15 June 1909.

Some of their friends who had returned from Canada for a visit, told John that Canada is the only place to make lots of money, "you can get rich in no time". So John sold what they had and gave up his good position. At first Marguerite didn't like the idea, but she finally agreed. In 1913 they crossed 3200 miles of ocean from Antwerp Belgium to Ellis Island, New York.

Ellis Island was the primary reception depot for immigrants to the United States between 1900 and 1924. Often 5000 immigrants a day passed through Ellis Island. All immigrants received a "six second medical" - a visual inspection. Those who had to be further examined were marked with chalk and directed to an examination room. For legal inspection, newcomers lined up with fellow passengers in rows. Each wore a tag with two numbers referring to the page and line on the ship's manifest where his name appeared. If an immigrant failed to answer inspections properly, he was sent to the special inquiry rooms. Detainees slept in dormitories that separated men from women and children.

Going through the advertisements, John and Margaret found work on a dairy farm in Poughkeepsie, New York. Wages were $35 per month for both of them, Marguerite cooked and John laboured. John was not used to this hard work and lost 30 pounds in 60 days. The Boss and his wife were kind to them and took such a liking to Lucy that they took her with them a lot.

In 1915 they arrived at Herbert, Saskatchewan where the hardship and struggle of farming began. They worked for Henry Guillaume ($40/month total) and later rented his farm. In 1915 they rented Mike Goeres farm. That winter Marguerite and Lucy stayed at the farm and worked for board and room, while John ran a Cinema (Dreamland Theatre) and Butcher Shop in Herbert. The winter of 1916, John left someone in charge of the businesses and hauled grain from south of Beechy to Herbert. That winter was so cold, many times he froze his face, feet and hands. Once so badly that his face blistered and did not heal up until spring. He stopped overnight at a farmstead near Main Centre, and he wished he had stayed in Luxembourg.

Then John sold the Butcher shop and Cinema and rented a farm a mile north of Herbert. There a second daughter was born on 25 February 1916, Renee Marie Caroline.

In 1920 they returned to Europe where John was employed as an interpreter for the French government at the Palais D'orsay (Hotel) in Paris. He knew how to speak seven languages -English, French, German, Holland, Latin, Letzebuergesch and Flamish.

It became too hard to stand all the time so he became a chauffeur at a villa on the outskirts of Paris and then later a personnel manager for a meat packing plant delivering all over Paris (1920-1924).

But they were not content - in 1925 they came back to Canada, helping Henry Guillame with harvest at Herbert then loaded their belongings and moved across the Herbert Ferry to Tony Hirtz's farm by Lucky Lake.

Ole and Kristine Hvidston and Gunnar:

Gunnar Hvidston was born in Bergen, Norway on the 29 July 1921. They lived at Alversund.

His earliest memory was of his Grandfather's horse drowning in the ocean in Norway. It was hooked up to a cart and the cart rolled off the dock with the horse attached to it.

In 1924 Ole Hvidston, Gunnar's dad, left for Canada to check out the farming situation by Hoffer, Saskatchewan where Kristine had family. Gunnar, and his mother Kristine, came the following year. All Gunnar remembers of the trip is riding on a rocking horse in the playroom.

They came to Montreal on a Cunard Steamship then boarded a train to Estevan. Rasmus and Karen Johnson (Kristine's sister and her husband) picked them up at the train station. It was harvest season and the first harvesting they'd ever seen was at Pete Bakken's near Estevan.

While we have the Cunard Steam Ship Co. Contract (No. 913) for Gunnar and his mother's passage, we are not sure what ship they were on. It traveled via Newcastle, London, Southampton to Quebec on the 4/8/1925. From researching from the source North Atlantic Seaway it is probable they traveled by one of the following ships; Andania, Ausonia, Athenia, Carmania or Caronia.

Ole rented some land by Oungre. Later they moved to Hoffer where he farmed and had the Graham Hill rural mail route for 15 years.

Brita and John Johnson:

Johan Johansson Smedjebacka was born the 16 March 1852 in Terjarv, Finland to Johan Mattsson and Maria Smedjebacka. Johan was 17 years old when his mother died.

They lived on a few acres at Ostersund, on one of the small islands in Lakes of the Woods, not far from Kenora (south-west), a flag stop on the CPR Railway. They lived in a two room log cabin near the lake and had a few acres of hay land with a couple cows and some chickens.

Homestead of John and Brita Johnson at Ostersund, Kenora