The new book, On the Way to America: from chapter one (not all of it, since there is a character limit on this site)
After a long, dirty train ride, crammed tightly in with many other travelers, Molly and her grandfather were both aching and exhausted as they boarded the ferry to Liverpool harbor. Early January weather did little to help matters; it was bitterly cold and the wind cut like a knife.
As heart-wrenching the sight of Ireland's green shores moving farther and farther away, Molly’s sadness was abated by excitement. She was filled with awe and wonderment at the sight of the sprawling, gray, snow-dusted city of Liverpool with its rising smoke and vast harbor crammed with steamships. The mighty sea-going vessels of two, three or even four smokestacks dwarfed the tiny ferry they all rode upon.
Well-wrapped against the cold, Molly kept a tight hold of her grandfather's arm as they disembarked onto the loading dock. It was the first time either of them had stepped foot on English soil.
Agents from shipping companies were among the people swarming the docks; these men were sought out by families and travelers who'd bought traveling packages at the railway office. Molly and her grandfather had traveled in the sooty, stench-ridden third-class railway cars and took the cheapest ferry passage over to England. Any temptation to complain about the smell or the cramped quarters was tempered by excitement.
Every passenger seemed to be going to America, to Ellis Island and New York. Along the journey Molly heard whispered rumors of the immigration island.
“It is the Island of Hope.” she overheard from one older woman on the train. “My cousin Mary wrote back, saying they eat like kings there, and they give you a flag and a kiss on the cheek and say you are now an American.” The woman's companion shook her head, sadly.
“My neighbor's daughter and her husband went over last year.” she said, in a hushed voice. “They said the journey was horrible, packed in like fish in a box and the smell was terrible; they were not let out for air in bad weather and she got ill with the boat rocking about so. She says when they got to New York, they had to strip naked and let doctors look at them. Even then, some people were not allowed to go on and were sent back to the ship. Some people there were very afraid and called it the Isle of Tears.”
Though the speakers had no idea they were being overheard, their words made fear well up in the young woman's mind. The journey to America sounded bad enough, but the island of Ellis suddenly changed from a gateway to freedom to a dark and mysterious den of uncertainty and exposure. Patrick did his best to allay her fears.
“Gossip lies nine times, and tells a half-truth the tenth.” he told her. “Even if all of that is true, folk still think 'tis worth the risk to have a chance at a new life. Myself I include in that, lass.” Molly took heart at his words, though she kept the rumors in her mind, just to be prepared.
The harbor docks were like no place Molly had ever seen; the day was mercifully clear, but cold. Steamships were docking and going to and fro, people streaming by the rows of shops to get to line up outside the shipping company offices. Vendors pushed carts of bread and hot soup to sell, calling out above the din. Sitting on the crate of their belongings, Molly waited for her grandfather to come back to her; she could see him just across the way, buying a loaf of bread from a vendor. Many families and travelers sat nearby and all around, all waiting to speak to one of the shipping company officials...
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