Coming to America

Dedication:

Immigration today can have a negative stigma in part due to the illegal breaches of our borders that happen each day. What I want to convey in this story has nothing to do with that. This story is about the hungry and poor, those huddled masses who yearned to be free and who legally made their journey into this country. One of my many concerns is that the younger generation and generations to come will not really know how or why our ancestors immigrated to America or how much we owe the brave souls that crossed our borders to obtain something that we all take for granted; their certificate of citizenship; their freedom.

In the 1900's immigrating to the United States was very different than it is today. The trip was brutal. And yet the reasons that most of the people want to make the United States their home today is because they have the same hopes and dreams that the immigrants did back then. What I find sad about it, is that it seems as though every ethnic group that comes here has to prove themselves before they are accepted. Some might say that's human nature, but I don't agree. If we truly understand this country's constitution and conceptual founding, how can we not accept people for merely wanting the "American Dream"? I know there are many arguments about immigration, but if it weren't for immigrants, just about every one of us would not be here. I don't want to create an argument; I just want to express my heartfelt gratitude to those who endured the legal adventure in which we all benefit today.

I am extremely proud to say that my grandparents immigrated to the United States from Czechoslovakia. I dedicate this story to my grandparents; Andrew and Mary (Hlavaty) Gonda who braved the unimaginable to come to the United States of America.

Since writing this story, there has been some dispute about some of the facts of this story. I took my notes directly from my Grandparents. They were elderly when they recorded these events and certainly time, age and illness could have compromised some of the facts. So I can't verify that the entire story is true. All I know is that this is what they told me. I've corrected what I could. I just know that their story needed to be told.

Coming to America

By Ann M Lindaman

Try to imagine, if you can, a sixteen year old boy’s parents telling him that they’re moving. Not to another nearby town, not to another state, but to another country. Imagine being sixteen years old and learning that you’re moving to a country that is over 4,000 miles away, across their beautiful homeland, across a wondrous but often times treacherous body of water; the Atlantic Ocean. To know that you were leaving the only home that you have ever known and that more than likely you would never return.

In 1912, that was the age of my Grandfather, Andrew Michael Gonda when he learned of the amazing journey that he and his parents and two sisters were about to take. This was a tumultuous period in his homeland. Czechoslovakia wasn’t actually created until 1918. Before that, the countryside was split; the Czechs ruled by Austria and the Slovaks were ruled by Hungary. It’s unclear to me which area my Grandfather came from but I believe it was Slovakia. By all accounts, Andrew (Andy) was your typical teenager; hanging out with his friends, flirting with girls and getting into “some mischief”, as he put it. He told me of times that he and his friends would climb high onto a cliff and throw rocks down the cliff, often times scaring the people below. One time as they made their dissent off of the cliff and hillside, they were almost caught. They were chased by the constable but outran him and they were so proud that they had escaped without being caught. Imagine his surprise when Andy got home only to learn that his parents had already been informed of his behavior. In those days, a “good licking with a strap” (according to Grandpa) was a common method of punishment for dastardly deeds of misguided teenage boys. He did mention in his recollection of his youthful folly that he realized later that someone might have been seriously hurt by a falling or should I say flying rock.

He didn’t really have a lot of free time though, as he had a job at the local wool mill. The lack of free time was probably a good thing considering the tempting mischief that surrounded him. I suppose he and his friends thought they needed to make the most of their time together. When it was cold, he would often sleep at the mill amidst the tall burlap sacks full of fluffy wool which he found to be warm and comfortable. Plus there was school. Raised as a strict Catholic, he attended Catholic school and undoubtedly was always under great scrutiny by the Nuns and the Parish Priest. One of the priests, who would later advise him not to go to America, was one of his uncles. He lived in a nearby village and when he came to visit, Andy fondly remembered his uncle’s beautiful horses that drew the wagon and how the people would gather around, asking him for a blessing and in turn, kneeling and kissing his ring.

Another one of Andy’s memories of time spent in his native country had to do with a plan that he and his friends came up with. Are you thinking what I’m thinking? Here comes trouble again! Well if you were thinking that, you are correct. Large lifelike puppets were made in those days to act out plays. They had been around for awhile, but during the middle ages people used puppets to act out religious and morality plays. Later they discovered ways to expand the artistry of puppetry. They used the figures to act out drama and comedy as well. Andy and his friends thought they’d like a piece of the action. A creative and fun way to make money; all they needed was the puppets. Since all the money he earned at the mill was given to his family, they began to plan on how to acquire the necessary materials for their not so very well thought out business plan. They needed a shortcut so that they could obtain their goal easily. Someone, either Andy didn’t remember or didn’t want to say, decided dolls would be the best course. But where would they get the dolls? They couldn’t afford to buy them, so they decided that their sisters and unsuspecting young girls in the neighborhood would just have to donate them. You guessed it, the girls were not in favor of giving up their dolls and since the boys were bigger, the girls found themselves suddenly without their favorite doll. I doubt that any of those boys knew how devastating that would be to a little girl or if they did, they chose to ignore it. So they stole the dolls from their sisters and friends of their sisters, one of whom ended up to be my Grandmother! Even some 80 years later, Grandma recalled how much she cried when her baby doll was snatched from her very arms. It’s a wonder she ever forgave him, let alone married him! The gratification of their newfound acquired treasures was short lived. Parents begin to hear the sobs of their daughters, to see the tears and sad faces and they justifiably began to ask questions. When they learned of how their little girls’ dolls had disappeared, there were some angry parents indeed. Needless to say, the dolls were returned and the boys got that “good licking with a strap” once again. One has to wonder what affect that strap had.

So with a devout desire for a better life for his family, Michael Gonda left his homeland ahead of his family, traveled to America, got a job with the railroad and saved every penny he could to send back to his wife Anna so that they could join him in America. Anna did her best to keep the family going while her husband was away. At that time, Royalty made claim to any of the good meat that came from livestock on the peoples farms. The people were left with very little, often having to salvage only the intestines for food for their family. One Christmas Anna’s daughter Mary took some berries to the village to sell for Christmas dinner. She didn’t get enough to buy anything but flour and sugar. She returned to the house, crying and telling her mother that they would not have any meat for Christmas dinner; leaving the door open behind her as she complained and a pheasant flew in behind her. Feeling that it was a gift from God, they slammed the door to make sure their Christmas bird would not get away. Surely things would be different in America.

Two extremely long and difficult years later Anna Gonda took the same 4,000 mile journey to America with her son Andrew and daughters Julie and Mary. They boarded a ship and crossed the Atlantic Ocean. It was a thirty five day trip over treacherous waters, full of icebergs. With little more than her children and a few personal belongings, they made their way to their new home. Not so lucky for the people who took the maiden voyage on the Titanic which sank 600 miles off of the icy coast of Halifax, Nova Scotia on April 15, 1912, taking 1,500 people with it. Incredibly, my Grandfather recalled seeing the debris from that horrific accident. They didn’t learn what the debris was from until after they had arrived in America. How sobering that news must have been to all of those who had survived the trip across.

In September of 2000, the year prior to another horrific event, my husband and I visited Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. I proudly found Michael and Anna Gonda’s name on the wall at Ellis Island. And as I gazed across the river at the beautiful New York City skyline, complete with the World Trade Center Towers, I closed my eyes and tried to imagine what it was like to be on an overcrowded ship full of people who had the same hopes and dreams for themselves and their families. They had to be exhausted, dirty; they must have been feeling sick from the trip across the vast ocean; they were probably hungry and fearful. Yet at the same time, something kept their hopes and dreams alive, filling their hearts with excitement as the ship inched its way into the New York Harbor. Undoubtedly the skyline was smaller, but oh, the site of the statue, our Lady, the welcoming site of the Statue of Liberty, standing tall, welcoming all who had crossed her path since 1886. I can only imagine how she must have looked to the weary but excited travelers with her arm held high, holding her torch to light their path from their world of oppression, across the dark rough waters and into her harbor. She was waiting for them, calling to them; she stood there to light their way to their new home.

I doubt that any of us that were born in this country can begin to know how difficult this had to be for Michael and Anna Gonda to make that journey. Can you begin to comprehend it? I surely can’t. Now try to imagine being a teenage girl making that trip alone! That was how my Grandmother, Mary Hlavaty made the trip. She had just turned 18. By now Czechoslovakia had claimed their independence from Austria and Hungary however life was not good for Mary.

When my Grandmother was just a young girl, her father, who was a musician, had traveled during a snow storm to play at a wedding. He had to walk, as only the wealthy had horses, according to my Grandma. He came down with pneumonia and died, leaving his wife to care for two daughters; Mary and Julie Ann. For a time, their only source of income was the vegetables that they grew. When she spoke of her father, she remembered him fondly, calling him a “beautiful man”. After her father died, her mother did what she could to make money to feed her daughters. Besides the garden, she would make dresses for the wealthier women in the village and when Grandma got a little older, she learned to embroider, adding that embellishment to the sleeves of the dresses that her mother made or sometimes she would add her craft to scarves, which my Grandma always called babushkas. Times were hard though and they barely made enough to put a roof over their heads and feed the three of them. So her mother, who was a decent, loving woman, married a man with four children; Sam, George, Ann and another child whom Grandma couldn’t recall her name. By my Grandmother’s account, her stepfather was not kind to her or her sister, often making sure that his children were fed before his wife’s children, especially my Grandmother. That was the only thing that she really told me about him. She didn’t seem to want to talk about that very long. Perhaps he disliked her because she was old enough to remember her father and didn’t consider him as her father, whereas Julie Ann was younger and perhaps more impressionable. It’s impossible to know why any adult would mistreat, abuse or not love a child, especially my Grandmother.

When my Grandmother became a young teenager, my Grandfather began to write to her from America. She remembered him alright, she remembered how he stole her favorite doll but somehow she remembered other things as well. I suppose she remembered him as she wanted to, as this could be her way out of the private hell she was living. But my Grandfather remembered her as an innocent girl. That’s how he described her in a tape recording that he made. Actually what he said was “she was like a Holy Mary, not so sexy, but honest and pure.” How romantic!

With her heart breaking but full of love and hope for her daughter, my great-grandmother took my grandmother to the train in Prague to travel to the Port of Rotterdam in the Netherlands so that she could begin her journey to America. Her mother promised to follow but sadly that never happened.

Just like her future husband, she made the trip across the treacherous waters on a ship called The Rotterdam. But unlike my Grandfather, who had traveled with the promise of spring and with the support of the rest of his family, the trip she made was in November and December and all alone. Arriving in the New York harbor probably looked a bit different on December 4th, 1920 than it did in April. The frigid air and the bare trees probably didn’t look very inviting in the background until she spotted our Lady Liberty. I have to believe that the site of her standing there, welcoming the weary, cold and hungry travelers warmed all of their hearts and renewed their sense of excitement. Grandma told me that the trip was extremely difficult and that there were times that people were on their knees praying that the ship wouldn’t turn over or sink. They prayed for their very survival. We can only imagine how frightened she was. My Grandfather’s family had settled in Michigan but he traveled to New York to pick up his bride to be.

Before my Grandmother arrived my Grandfather’s family had settled in Munising MI, about 80 miles from Detroit where Michael Gonda, my Great-grandfather took a job with the railroad. My Grandfather told us of a time that he and some friends took some whiskey and beer and “borrowed” one of the handcars that belonged to the railroad that his father worked for. They were having one heck of a joy ride when suddenly they saw a train coming. They only had seconds to decide what to do. My Grandfather jumped off one side of the handcar, rolling down a hill and onto the edge of a river bank while his other three friends jumped off the other side of the handcar and rolled down the opposite hill. When they climbed back up the hill they found that the handcar had been smashed, along with their whiskey and beer bottles. And yes, that meant another “good licking with a strap”! Actually my Grandfather described that one as “a hell of a beating.”

Times were getting tough and the railroad had laid off a lot of people, including Michael Gonda. He moved his family further north in Michigan, up in the Bad Axe area and bought some heavily wooded land from the government for $100 per acre. They worked hard, cutting down trees and selling logs for money and soon put up a small house. A very small house for a family, only 14 foot by 20 foot. Eventually they purchased three horses and put the horses to work, pulling stumps and plowing. They grew sugar beets to sell. There were no ditches and irrigation was a problem, so after a few years, his Dad sold that farm and purchased 120 acres east of Bach, MI. This was primarily a German community and Grandpa’s sisters, Mary and Julie seemed to be the victims of a lot of torment from the other kids in the area. Grandpa, being the scrapper he was, and obviously not learning a thing from that strap, took after some of the boys that were picking on his sisters. He chased them down with a horse and yielding a knife in his hand. The boys ran and got help. About six men on horseback came to Michael and Anna Gonda’s home searching for Andy and his knife. The knife was never found and the charges that had been filed had to be dropped due to lack of evidence. Grandpa confessed on his tape recording that he had thrown the knife in the swamp on the way home. He must have made his point because those boys didn’t mess with his sisters again. After they settled in Michigan, Michael and Anna Gonda had four more sons; Joe, Gus, Louie and John.

His father worked him hard on the farm and being a young adult; he wanted to venture out on his own, so he left home and moved to Detroit, working on the streetcars. For a couple of springs, he returned back to the farm to help out for the summer. He did that for two seasons and then took a job with Henry Ford for $2.00 per day. In the evening’s he took an electrical class and became an electrician for Henry Ford. He got to know Henry Ford fairly well and since Michael Gonda was a musician, Ford invited Andy’s Dad to play at a few events that he had.

Andy had started to think about settling down and began writing to young Mary Hlavaty back in “the old country” as he put it. She came to America and they married. Much to the dismay of Grandpa and his family, they weren’t able to marry in the Catholic Church as Grandma was a Protestant. But they were married and he continued to work for Ford, enjoying a couple of promotions. In 1924, their first son, Bill, was born, who eventually become my Dad. Life was good for Andrew and Mary. Grandpa and his supervisor at the plant came up with a plan to develop housing project. This plan was well on its way and they had put several homes up, then the depression hit. Grandpa’s voice changed on the tape when he talked about this time. He recalled losing everything that they had begun to build, along with the prestige that came from what he had acquired and he felt that his very honor and been lost. The banks closed and they couldn’t afford to live on their own.

Before Mary had arrived, Andy had enjoyed the company of a couple of young women. One was a girl of Polish decent who offered the young family, who was now destitute, a place to live. She moved out of her house near Utica, MI and let them move into her home for $150 per year. Sounds reasonable, but you have to remember that during the depression, any money was extremely difficult to come by. Somehow they managed; they planted a garden, and during season, my Grandfather traveled to Detroit every day with a load of green beans, selling his harvest at a Farmer’s Market. Grandma stayed in Utica and ran a gas station across the road from the house they lived in. They lived this way for four years and then the woman needed to move back into her home. By this time they had acquired a couple of horses and a tractor which they gave to his father, Michael. Then Andy, Mary and their little son Bill, moved in with Andy’s parents. Understandably this didn’t work out very well but they stuck it out for a couple of years until the economy began to improve and Grandpa landed another job with the government as a translator. The government provided a home for Grandpa and Grandma and he would travel around to farms, helping immigrants fill out affidavits. He did that for about three years. From that job he wrote some articles for the paper and was asked to work for the European Information Bureau and for a couple of years they moved to Canada to work with a Barrister, continuing to work with new immigrants. During this period, the tunnel under the Detroit River, between Windsor and Detroit was being constructed. For some reason Grandpa was asked to dress up as a priest and go down to the tunnel and bless the workers. The work was extremely difficult and the account of the story was a little sketchy but Grandma was not happy with this job. Perhaps they were using undocumented workers in the tunnel? Maybe it was the fact that he was impersonating a priest! We can only speculate. The tunnel’s construction began in 1928 and was completed in 1930. For more information about what’s still regarded as “one of the greatest engineering wonders of the world”, visit www.windsorpubliclibrary.com/digi/fleetway/english/history1.htm.

But when their visa was about to expire, they wanted to return to the United States where his true allegiance was. My Grandfather had begun to read some literature about growing mushrooms. So, they moved once again back to Detroit and Andy became business partners with a Rabbi and a Doctor in the mushroom growing business. They hired one of my Grandpa’s brothers to haul manure from Canada to Detroit to grow their mushrooms. Well, Uncle Joe, trying to supplement his wages, began to smuggle whiskey across the border and was busted, customs cracked down on their business and according to Grandpa, “his mushroom business was shot to hell.” Grandpa never did say if he was in on the smuggling of the whiskey but somehow I rather doubt that Uncle Joe was in it alone!

By this time, Grandma and Grandpa had five children; Bill, Elsie, Tom, Dave and Roger. He needed a steady job. Putting his electrical knowledge back in the forefront, Andy took a job with Packard Motors where he worked for a few years, even getting his two oldest children jobs there, Bill and Elsie. Then the union came to Detroit, causing clashes with organizers and the car companies, people were killed during some of these clashes, so Grandpa ventured out on his own again, buying a restaurant which they named the Green Feather. All five of their children worked at the Green Feather. But work was no excuse for not studying and applying themselves in school. Two of their sons became doctors; one went into real estate and later became a business owner. Another son became an executive with Universal Films and later with Disney and their daughter became an actress, vocalist and a teacher. Not bad for having arrived in this country with little more than the clothes on their backs and a hunger for a better life.

WWII broke out and my Dad, just barely out of medical school, joined the Army as a medic and was stationed in the South Pacific for a time and also in Europe. My Grandparents, unable to run the restaurant successfully without their children’s help, gave that up and my Grandfather bought an apartment building, living in one apartment and renting out the others. He started a screen window business in the basement of the building. I remember him doing that and lots of other odds and ends of jobs. He had a lot of talent and worked hard at whatever he chose to do all of his life. No job was beneath him if it meant feeding and housing his family. My Grandmother too; she worked by his side at whatever she could help with, raised their five children and did a lot of cooking! They were also proud that their son Tom joined the Air Force and their son Dave joined the Army and served during the Korean war. Their youngest son, Roger also joined the Reserves.

In 1968 the riots broke out in downtown Detroit, just blocks away from the apartment building that they had called home since I was a child. I was only 14, so in just a few years, that area had gone from being a safe fun place to visit to a war zone. Afraid for their parents lives, my Uncles came downtown to take them out but my Grandfather wouldn’t leave. They took my Grandma with them and after one last attempt to get Grandpa to go, they fled the rioting. Grandpa stayed with a loaded gun and their loyal dog, determined to protect his building. Fires were breaking out all around him, so he climbed to the roof of the building to hose it down with water. A police chopper saw him on the roof, thinking he was a sniper, swooped down but thankfully realized that he was an old man and got on their loud speaker and ordered him off of the roof immediately! Grandma never went back to that area and my Uncles finally talked Grandpa into moving out into the suburbs but he kept the building until he died, making trips downtown with his gun and his dog to collect his rent. It was impossible to get good renters by this time because most people didn’t want to live down there.

I’ve always wished that I had gotten more information from both of them. I have the tape recording of my Grandfather which was recorded in 1977 as he was dying of Leukemia. The information that I got from my Grandmother was gathered a few years before she died. Undoubtedly there’s more to their stories but the questions will go unanswered and will just have to play out in our imaginations. I am grateful for the information that I did obtain from them. I feel that their stories are important to tell…important to share, especially now when there’s so much discussion about immigration. In my eyes, they were the true immigrants. They were true heroes, to be so brave to want something for themselves and their children that would take them to the other side of the Atlantic. To have the fortitude and determination to work at whatever jobs they could find even in what most of us would consider the worst times in American history. But they did it and they managed to instill in their children that they had an obligation to those who came here before them to study, work and do their very best. They didn’t sneak across the border. They asked to come here, they braved the trip, revered the passing of the Statue of Liberty, made their way through the process at Ellis Island, learned the language and became citizens of the United States of America. Yes, they talked about their beautiful homeland and I’m sure a part of them missed it terribly but they made the decision that they wanted to be Americans and only glanced back now and then. I personally think we still owe those immigrants. We owe them the respect to expect that every immigrant that comes here pays the same dues, the same respect to this country. I don’t blame anyone for wanting a better life for themselves and their children. And I do think that we as a country need to do a better job at welcoming immigrants; legal immigrants.

Yes, I got a little off-track. This story is dedicated to my Grandparents. I guess I just felt I owed them my view of immigration. They are no longer here to voice it themselves, so I wanted to do it for them.

Andrew and Mary Gonda didn’t have an easy life. They struggled through their trip to America and they endured our Great Depression and many other difficult obstacles. I wish I could say that their lives got easier as they got older but sadly that didn’t happen. Their only daughter, Elsie, who became a teacher, also developed schizophrenia. She was such a talented person. After college, she moved out to the Los Angeles area and became an actress, a beautiful vocalist and got married. The marriage ended, she came back to Detroit to begin a teaching career and make a new start for herself and then became mentally ill. As a parent, I know how heartbreaking this must have been for them. Then in 1972, their son Tom, who owned a furniture store, was robbed and murdered in front of his wife and his sister Elsie. I remember the initial pain the entire family went through after Uncle Tom’s murder. I remember how crushed both of my Grandparents were at the time. But another moment I’ll never forget was years later, nearly 20 years later, shortly before my Grandma died, was the look in her eyes when she had allowed me to interview her on one of my last trips back to visit her. She was winding down her life story, not seeming to regret any of it, until she spoke of Tom. With a look way beyond tearful…a look of the deepest darkest pain, she said in her heavy Slavic accent, “He was such a good son. He used to call me every morning and then they killed him. I thought I would die too, but I didn’t.”

And then in keeping with her character, my Grandmother, who never chose to dwell on bad things, just changed the subject. Perhaps her pain was too deep to allow out for more than a few seconds. I doubt that anyone who hasn’t lost a child could understand that kind of pain. It’s not supposed to happen that way. We prepare ourselves for the loss of our parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles. We are always aware that we may outlive our spouse, our friends and our siblings. But nowhere in the deepest recesses of our minds is there any way to wrap ourselves around our children taking that path before we do. My heart goes out to all those who live with that kind of pain. I saw it in her eyes that day. I don’t think my description is adequate. I do know that I’ll never forget it. And I’ll never forget my Grandparents and the debt that we owe them.

There is no such thing as perfection although I used to think my Grandparents were. I’ve learned in recent years that they weren’t. They were human as we all are. I’ve learned some things that I really wish I didn’t know over the past few years but I know it nevertheless and as hard as we try, we can’t turn back the hands of time. We can’t go back but we can look ahead. We all have within us the ability to forgive. Forgiveness may be a virtue but besides the moral and ethical reasons that we are taught to forgive, I feel that it’s necessary for all of us to be able to forgive in order to live. Forget…absolutely not. If we forget the incredible things that have happened to us, even the tragic and heartbreaking events, then learning would be useless and compassion could not survive. My personal feeling is that forgetting creates a path for repeating the same mistakes or enabling them to happen again. Forgiveness is what makes a victim a survivor.

Song Choice "America" by Neil Diamond: Play music
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