Three days after Father and I completed our trip from Michigan to Miami,
I began work as bookkeeper for a magazine and newspaper distributing
company. I continued to work there until a hurricane virtually destroyed
the business.
One week later, I went to work for the Phoenix Utility Company in their
construction office where the company was building an electricity-generating
station north of Miami, in the Everglades. The new job fit my needs
admirably. I could drive from home in the morning and return home each
night.
When the power plant was completed, I faced two alternatives. I could
transfer to St. Louis, Missouri, to work on a power plant already planned
there. Instead I returned to Michigan to attend Michigan Normal College.
Following a quick check of my savings, I learned I had enough money
saved for one or two years of college.
Returning to Michigan presented no problem. I could go there by train,
as Mother had a year earlier. The hurricane had virtually obliterated
the Florida land boom. And Father planned to leave for Michigan within
a few days.
While scanning the pages of the Miami Daily News, I came across
an advertisement offering an ocean voyage from Miami to New York at
comparable fares to the train. I could go to New York City, take a riverboat
up the Hudson River to Buffalo, and thence across the Great Lakes to
Michigan.
Further investigation led me to book passage from Miami to New York.
I tried to get Father to accompany me, but he preferred to use the train.
Accordingly, I came aboard the Munamar, a fast passenger-carrying
freighter of the Munson Lines. On our first day out, we stopped at Bimini
where the freighter took on additional cargo. When I got on deck the
next morning, boys basking on the wharf were diving into the crystal-clear
water to retrieve coins tossed there by tourists.
After we got under way, I enjoyed a voyage on an almost-quiet sea.
On the way, I became acquainted with one of the passengers, a young
man named Al Ackerman who was returning to Detroit. His father owned
a theater near where I lived while attending business school there.
We struck it off right away and explored the ship from stem to stern,
from coal-fired boilers to throbbing engines. When we arrived in New
York, we passed the Statue of Liberty on Ellis Island where my grandparents
and my mother entered the country from Germany.
In New York, I boarded a ferryboat and traveled up the Hudson River
to Buffalo. From there, to the Great Lakes, where a vessel carried me
to Detroit and home.
Three weeks later, I enrolled in Michigan Normal College (now known
as Eastern Michigan University) in Ypsilanti where I met my future wife,
Rose. I'm glad I didn't transfer to St. Louis, Missouri, to work on
the power plant there, but instead chose "the other road taken."
If you have questions or comments
about this Web page or site, e-mail: mary@vanmeer.com
© 2004 Leo VanMeer
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