By Harold Reutter
harold.reutter@theindependent.com

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Independent/Barrett Stinson Lincoln actress Pippa White brings the ³Voices of the Island² to life for students at St. Paul High School on Tuesday morning. The actress portrayed seven immigrants who actually came to America through Ellis Island. Independent/Barrett Stinson St. Paul High School students watch and listen as actress Pippa White portrays an immigrant negotiating her way through Ellis Island after coming to America. Click Thumbnails to View

Those immigrants included Jeanie from Scotland; Fannie, a Russian Jew; Luigi from Italy; Vera from Czechoslovakia; Hans from Germany; Vera from Ireland; and Rifka, a Jewish woman from Russia.

That mix was quite deliberate, said White following her Tuesday morning performance before students in the family and consumer science classroom.

"Most immigrants from the turn of the last century were from central and eastern Europe," said White, although she said people came to the United States from all over the world.

"The stories are all true," White told the students. She explained that she took the stories from letters, journals and diaries, finding seven characters she liked the most.

"Forty percent of our ancestors came through Ellis Island," said White, who noted that means nearly half of all Americans have a connection to that port of entry for immigrants.

Although immigrants had a burning desire to come to America, not all their experiences were positive.

That became evident with Scottish Jeanie, who talked about the rough crossing, which caused many people to become seasick. Even worse was the measles outbreak that killed so many children, whose bodies were dumped into the ocean.

One immigrant child wondered why all the women on ship were so careful to wash their hair each day. The child was told the women were afraid that if even one louse, much less lice, was found in their hair, they would not be allowed to enter America.

Vera from Czechoslovakia lied to immigration officials in Europe and said she was five months pregnant because that was the cutoff point for pregnant immigrant women who wanted to come to America.

Vera was actually eight months pregnant, but was finally able to convince the officials that her pregnancy was only five months along. She got so seasick she could not eat or move for 10 days.

Hans recalled 30-foot waves on his trip, which also made many of the passengers seasick.

Scottish Jeanie's first impression from the ship of Ellis Island, the Statue of Liberty and New York City was that they were very beautiful.

But another immigrant's initial image once on Ellis Island was that there was "not a smile" on anybody's face and that there was "so much sadness that you have to cry."

Indeed, White labeled the stop at Ellis Island "Island of Hope, Island of Tears." An immigrant who landed at Ellis Island was not yet in America: He or she still had to be officially admitted into the country.

As White noted, immigrants needed four things in order to be admitted. One was a person to pick them up or a destination where relatives or a job awaited. Another was possession of $25. The third requirement was the ability to read, not necessarily English, but at least in one's own language. The fourth was a physical exam to show that a person had no diseases.

For pregnant Czech Vera, those rules meant a day of anxious waiting until her husband showed up at the end of the day. Her husband had been job hunting and thought that his wife was not scheduled to arrive that day.

For others, it meant a longer stay. Several of White's immigrants had extended stays at Ellis Island because of the fear they had trachoma, an infectious eye disease that could cause blindness.

None of her seven immigrants actually had the dreaded disease, so they weren't barred from the United States for that reason. But other suspected illnesses still kept people detained on Ellis Island and some were even sent back to their home countries.

In the case of Russian Jews, a return could mean death because of the ongoing pogroms in that country during that period of history.

One immigrant family solved the health problem by using spit to erase an "X" which stood for possible mental illness from one woman's clothes.

Another immigrant family had the required $25 to show they had the means to support themselves. But they noted that $25 was often passed back in line to more destitute immigrants. As a result, the same $25 was often shown over and over again to gain admittance for many people.

One family had only $9, but the immigration official either inadvertently or through kindness did not ask about the money.

Rifka was barred from the U.S. because ringworm had caused all her hair to fall out. One immigration official told Rifka she could not be admitted because her baldness meant no man would marry her. Therefore, she was at risk of going onto that day's version of the welfare roles.

But Rifka used her time in Ellis Island detention to learn English. Finally, one immigration official believed Rifka's obvious intelligence meant she could be admitted to the country because she would be able to support herself even if no man married her.

On that day, Rifka learned her hair was finally growing back in.

As White noted, immigrants found a mixture of both caring and uncaring people among the overworked immigration officials at Ellis Island.

Tuesday afternoon, White performed "The Extraordinary Ordinary," on "the mystery, the history and the power of language" at Shoemaker Elementary. On Wednesday she will perform "Voices from Ellis Island" at Doniphan-Trumbull.