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With the start of a new year, and specifically January, there are so many fun historical facts about the month itself. Alaska became a state on January 3, 1959, and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was published in its first copies in London, anonymously, in Jan. of 1823. One event sticks out to me, though, and that is because it has to do with my own family history.
Ellis Island opened the doors of its main immigration station on Jan. 1, 1892. It was the primary immigration station for the United States for years, with an estimated 12 million immigrants making their way through its gates. Among those were both my maternal and paternal great-great-grandparents. They made their passage to the United States from Czechoslovakia, and what we can assume is Poland, before settling in Minnesota.
One of the interesting things about Ellis Island is how many names were changed during passage. On my mother’s side, her ancestors' surname was changed from Vohnutka to Wohnutka; my father’s changed from Jersak to Jarsak. My great-grandfather, Edward Woknutka, passed away in 2010 at the age of 99.
His daughter, my grandmother, still lives in Bechyn, MN. The St. Mary Catholic Church there is where almost all Wohnutkas have been buried. The town itself has no official census. I have always heard that, at this point, my grandmother is basically the only one who lives there. Still, the Bechyn Czech Heritage Festival draws a huge crowd every year, with a Czech dinner and a Polka Mass at the historic church among its draws.
My father’s history is a little more challenging to scrounge up. I do know that when I visited New York City in my teens on a school trip, I found the Jersak name among the names on the passenger manifests. Among those was a family of four from Skryzow who immigrated through Ellis Island in 1901. Skryzow, which lies outside of Czechoslovakia in the southern area of Poland. We can assume, based on the family history I have heard, that these would be my ancestors, but there is also a large number of Jersaks from Russia, as well as Austria.
Ellis Island is situated where one of the first views of America that those who immigrated here were able to see is the Statue of Liberty on nearby Liberty Island. It is quite humbling when you look out from the museum to this massive statue that is stationed as a welcome for those who may have been escaping persecution or simply looking for a better life.
This is best noted by the quote on the plaque of the pedestal of the statue itself, which is from Emma Lazarus's poem, "The New Colossus,” and while many are familiar with it, I feel it sometimes is a good reminder of what the United States was for many people who made the journey to Ellis Island:
"Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
