DAY 3

(Apr. 25)

 

I drew the rune Daggaz this morning, it means “Day”.  It is the culmination of all that has gone before me…I am going to Ellis Island.

1215 am as I write this, I just finished calling everyone in my family to tell them about it.  At Ellis Island the crew took me down to a metal wall with thousands of names on it that encircles the island.  They told me that one of my ancestors’ names was on it.  They wanted me to walk along, on camera, and search for the name until I found it.  So I did that.

I found Nils and Maria Aasland Herigstad.  I gasped when I first saw the name, it was quite a moment.  I had no idea that there would be a Herigstad on this wall.  I knew my family had immigrated here but I had never associated their immigration with Ellis Island, I guess I always figured they went straight to Montana somehow. 

Then, on camera they asked me a bunch of questions like what it meant to me, how did it make me feel, stuff like that.  I got a little chocked up as I sometimes do when I consider the people that have gone before be.

We eventually left the wall and we were guided through some of the buildings on the Island.  There is a great hall, hauntingly empty now.  As I stood in the middle of it I could almost see the huddled masses of people as they scurried for a spot in one of the lines, I could almost hear the din caused from a thousand people all murmuring in foreign tongues, the crying babies, the barking orders of the Island officials as they tried to maintain order amidst the chaos. 

 

What it must have smelled like; musty leather suitcases carried by people who just arrived from a several day ocean voyage.  As I stood there, trying to imagine what it must have been like with my physical senses I was overtaken by something else; the sheer raw courage of these people.  Imagine, fitting everything you own into a couple suitcases and putting your family on a ship bound for somewhere you have only heard about…so brave.  Then I imagined the disappointment, when they realized the streets really weren’t paved with gold, everyone wasn’t friendly, food still had to be won.  There was opportunity though, and in spite of the hardships I imagine it was the sweet aroma of opportunity that wafted in from the mainland and gave them strength to keep putting one foot in front of the other.  Opportunity.  America. 

When filming the opening segment Henriette asked three other people about their ancestors that came through there.  Then she got to me, of course I got a little choked up again…which caused a few of the girls to get choked up, even Henriette  got a little misty.  That part was edited out of the show though.

Tomorrow at 4:30 our plane leaves.  We will fly to Germany and change planes.  Then we will fly to Sweden, where we will take a bus to a hotel somewhere near the border.  Then, the next day, somehow we will enter Norway.