Week 31 of 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Prompt - Oldest

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Week 31

Prompt – Oldest

Kelowna in the summertime is sunny and very hot. Our mountains are covered by forests of mainly evergreens. It is inevitable that we will see forest fires every summer. Some are started by careless humans in campground fires or cigarette butts. However the majority are started by lightning. Right now we have 30 plus wild fires of note. Kelowna air is thick with smoke. The type that stings the eye and blocks the sun making for orange hues of daylight.

At the end of July we were in Vancouver celebrating our daughter's elopement wedding party. While in Vancouver we read a news item on our I Phone that showed there was a fire in our area of Kelowna about 2 kilometers away from our condo. The area was put on evacuation alert. Upon hearing the news I immediately had to face the very remote possibility that we could return to no home. Now it was never evacuated and the fire which was started by two boys playing with a lighter was brought under control with mega response of the fire department in a few days.

At first I realized all that was important to me was with me in Vancouver. Everything else was just “stuff”. After the emergency was over and the evacuation alert lifted I began to think of the stuff that could have been lost and in particular my genealogy stuff – the irreplaceable things. I have scanned most if not all of these documents into my computer. I have backed them up to the hard drive and to thumb drives and even the I Cloud. However there is something so special about the actual documents in my possession which are about 100 years old. I guess it is knowing that you are holding a certificate, a document, a booklet or a picture that your now deceased relative was also holding.

The oldest document that I have is the Inspection Card for my grandmother McLaughlin, nee, Krikau. It is 107 years old. It has yellowed and is very brittle and some of the stamps on it are beginning to fade. Overall it is still readable.

By an Act of the United States Congress in February 1893 an order to all consular officers and medical officers of the United States serving in ports such as Ellis Island must enact the following two orders. Firstly, immigrants and steerage baggage must be inspected and then when passed it shall be labelled with a "red label, bearing the name of the port, the steamship on which the baggage is to be carried, the word inspected in large type, the date of inspection, and the seal or stamp of the consulate or of the medical officer of the United States serving in the office of the consul.” Similarly all baggage that has been disinfected would receive a yellow label “upon which shall be printed the name of the port, the steamship upon which the baggage is to be earned, the word disinfected in large type, the date of disinfection, and the seal or stamp of the consulate or of the medical officer of the United States serving in the office of the consul.” and it is not valid unless it has the the consular or medical officer stamp. I never saw these label and presumably these label went with their suitcases which were probably disposed of many years later.

Secondly in addition to the baggage inspection it was ordered that each immigrant or steerage passenger would receive a “Inspection Card” which should include the following, “stamp of the port of departure, name of the steamship, date of departure, name of immigrant or steerage passenger and last residence, and the seal or stamp of the United States consulate or the detailed medical officer.” The purpose of those cards was to facilitate an easier transportation through the states and foreign countries such as Canada.

On my grandmother's Inspection Card she is listed as Maria Krikau who sailed aboard a ship called “Birma” leaving the port of Libau on October 3, 1911 and her last residence was Privalnoje. It also states where on the ship's manifest Maria Krikau name is found. Under the medical inspection area is the stamp of the Acting Assistant Surgeon whose name might be a Dr. C. M. De Forest. Under the Civil Examination site is the stamp of New York Canadian Govt. Official and within the stamp is the word, “passed”. Actually this stamp is also stamped again between the medical inspection area and civil area. The third area is for Railroad Ticket Agents Stamp and here is the stamp “Canadian Pacific Railway, October 17 1911, I Broadway, N.Y., New York”. This now tells us that she left Ellis Island and headed to Canada aboard a Canadian Train on October 17^th, a mere 14 days after her departure from Libau.

The back of the Inspection Card is written a note that says “This card should be kept carefully for 3 years. It should beshown (sic) to government officials whenever required.” This statement is written in a dozen different languages.

Grandma was 7 years old. She was probably tired from living in steerage for a week on the boat. It would have been close quarters with many other immigrants of different ethnicity. The bureaucracy of Ellis Island would have been stressful especially if she thought she could be deported due to her hearing loss. The English language was foreign. She probably kept close to her parents for fear of losing them in this muddled strange new country. I imagine that her father was given each of the family's Inspection Cards to keep track of. Somewhere down the years she had kept her card and kept it in a special document holder that held other important papers to her like naturalization, her first and second will etc. The Inspection Card was her first legal paper in this new land. It was like an admission slip. And maybe Grandma saw it as that thing which changed the course of her life forever.

Wendy