My father preceded my mother and I in coming to the United States and attached is his immigration passenger arrival list. My father sailed from Southampton in September 1954 aboard the Queen Elizabeth. He went to a place called CRI in Reisterstown, northwest of Baltimore, Maryland, where, as a physiotherapist, he went to work with cerebal palsy children. My mother, Yoria C. George, and I (age seven) sailed from Liverpool in January 1955 aboard the Saxonia. I can remember that my mom's cousins who had a greengrocers and produce company supplying the ships with meat, filled the cabin with carnations. After a bad passage during which my mother was ill most of the time, we arrived in cold but blue-skied New York City, and my father was there to meet us.
I can remember being taken up the Empire State Building and places such as an automat, where you were served sandwiches in little windows-- it seemed the latest in luxury and modern conveniences. Also after arrival, it was a miracle to find that supermarkets had doors that opened for you.
We traveled by train to Baltimore and stayed with Miss Flavin, who worked with my father, at her row house (terraced house) on Guilford Avenue, which is the address that is shown on the immigration document for my mother and myself. Although we lived in Wallingford, Connecticut, for a year until the hospital where Dad worked declared bankruptcy, and I also came back to Liverpool to go to school (Rose Lane and Quarry Bank) we lived most of the time in the Baltimore, Maryland area, where I still live, close to the Johns Hopkins University campus.
My father died in 1979 of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. My mother, age 86, is still alive and living in a senior citizen high rise in downtown Baltimore about fifteen minutes away by car. Baltimore, by the way, used to be known as the "Liverpool of the East Coast of America" and there are similarities -- both seaports with a big working class population, row houses here, terraced houses in Liverpool, and the people have a nice sense of humor similar to Scousers.
The first graphic below represents one of Baltimore's finest moments, when Fort McHenry in Baltimore harbor withstood the British naval bombardment of 1814, prompting Georgetown lawyer Francis Scott Key to write the poem, "The Star-Spangled Banner" the words of which became the lyrics of the U.S. national anthem in 1932, to the music of an eighteenth century British drinking song, to "Anacraeon in Heaven." Also shown is a recent view of Baltimore's popular Inner Harbor.
Chris
Fort McHenry, Baltimore, September 1814, by Dale Gallon. The painting represents the moment the large Star-Spangled Banner was raised on the morning of September 15, 1814 when it was realised that the British were withdrawing. A ropewalk near Fells Point in the city of Baltimore is seen burning to the northeast at top right of the picture. The American garrison is seen cheering on the ramparts. Image courtesy of the Patriots of Fort McHenry.
Christopher T. George: chat and pics
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