Personal Narrative: A Trip To Carmania

At this moment, all barriers that separated us between first and third class were broken as every passenger scrambled to the deck of Carmania to catch a glimpse of Lady Liberty. I managed to get past the crowds of passengers and pressed up against the side of the ship, as we entered the New York Harbor. The past 6 weeks had felt like 6 long months, but the constant feeling of nausea and the bruises from being slammed against the doors of my small cabin/room whenever the ship hit a hard wave was worth it for this moment and this view. Three months earlier, a letter had arrived at our quaint home in Dalkey, Ireland saying that my Aunt Nora had died in childbirth. My uncle Rowan, who owned a millinery shop, was left to his own devices to raise their four children in Boston, Massachusetts. Mother and her sister were very close so the news of her death devastated my mother. However, I had only met my Aunt Nora and Uncle Rowan once, the night before they

In a shaky voice Mother hugged me and said, “Take care, my darling Ida.” I still had both feet on Irish soil, but somehow I was already longing to be home. Nevertheless, I picked up my bags and headed towards the ship to sail to Liverpool where I would find my way to the innermost of ship’s body where I would spend the next 12 days in third class. The next 12 days were the worst of my life, and I had not even landed in the strange new world that would be America. The Carmania, the ship that I was travelling on, had left Liverpool in the dead of winter, so every night I would go to bed shivering, wrapped in wool blankets. I would wake up in the morning to find that the room was askew from the ship crashing against the roaring waves. As soon as I began to think of home, I opened the letter Mother had given me. My eyes filled with tears, and for once I let them roll down my cheek, as I read her