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Hilga Trow relives an immigrant experienceHilga Trow, of Bennington, revisted Ellis Island, where, as an infant, sheBennington residentvisits Ellis Island, where it all began for herBy GORDON D FIEDLER JR.Salina foumalBENNINGTON - Hilga Trow toured Ellis Island in New York Harbor last month for the second time in her life, but she’ll only remember this trip.She was last through the famed— and sometimes infamous- immigrant portal in 1927, as a 9-day-old infant, carried by her parents, recently of Karlsruhe,Germany.The Robert and Emma Rastet-ter family’s arrival, in the words of poet Emma Lazarus, was truly “tempest-tost.“I was supposed to be born in America,” Trow said, “but the ship was in a terrible storm.The Rastetters had booked third-class passage on the S.S. Hamburg, which ran afoul of a massive storm with winds the New York Times described as erf hurricane velocityOf the flotilla of immigrant ships making passage, the article reported that the Hamburg bore the brunt of the storm.Trow s German birth certificate, which she didn’t receive until decades later, indicated she was born in the North Atlantic, around 49 degrees north latitude and 13 degrees west longitudeThe family’s travails didn’t end when they stepped on solid ground.“We had to stay on Ellis Island for six weeks,” Trow said, “because my brother (15-month-old Edwin) had German measles.Mother and babe in arms Hilgastayed in the compound’s hospitalwhile dad and son Edwin bunkedelsewhere on the island.“Mom didn't know where he was and he didn’t know where she was for a couple of weeks, she said.For that reason, Trow said her parents didn’t talk much of theirarrival.“It was not a very pleasant expe rience, she said.However, there must have been a thin sliver of hopefulness: Hilga’s middle name is Hamburg, after theshipAs children, Trow and her siblings knew the bare essentials — she was born aboard a storm-battered ship, in the squalor of steerage, her brother was sick and that their release from Ellis Island was delayed for more thana month.When they were at last free to leave, they boarded a train for Clay Center, where her mother’s uncle, Fred Kiefer, met them and took them to his home in Oak Hill.It was he who ent iced the Rastetters to emigrate.“ He came over in 1909 as a younger man,” Trow said. “He wanted some of his family from Germany to come over.A nephew turned down the offer because his wife didn’t want to leave her family, but Kiefer’s niece, Trow’s mother, jumped at the chance, as did Trow’s father.“Dad said the economic conditions in Germany were very bad at that time. Terrible, terrible.The family lived in Oak Hillfor several years, where the elder Rastetter worked for the railroad. Eventually, they moved to the Ben nington area. By now, they were a family of five — Trow’s sister Erma was born in Oak Hill.Her parents applied for citizenship in the mid-1930s, but complications with names required her dad to refile, but he didn’t have the money. So he let the matterdrop, thinking he could reapply at a more opportune time, but then World War II intervened.Trow said she remembers herdistraught parents talking, in German, when Hitler invaded Poland. She said they were concerned about family back in GermanyOf the five Rastetters, only Erma was an American citizen; the rest had to file as German aliens as required by the 1940 Alien Registration Act.“We had to register in Ottawa County,” Trow said. “We weren’t able to travel very far. We could only travel to surrounding counties.One of the those was ClayCounty where the Kiefers lived, so they were able to visit them, but more distant travel was forbidden, as was the possession of cameras, shortwave radio receivers and firearms.“We couldn’t haw a shortwave radio, I remember that,” Trow said.That wasn't a problem, because they didn’t own one, and Trowdidn’t think her parents had a camera.In other places in the country, Germans were jailed, interned and deported, but Trow said her family were treated fairly, despite her parents’ thick, tell-tale accents.One day during the war, theyTOM DORSEY / Salma Journalentered the United States in 1927.received notification from an Illinois farmer that Emil Rastetter, one of her dad’s younger brothers, who was in the German army, had been captured and sent to a POW camp in Benton Harbor, Mich.While there, he and others were put to work on an Illinois farm cutting trees. The prisoner mentioned to the landowner that he had a brother living in Kansas.However, they didn’t learn until after the war that another younger brother also had been captured and was imprisoned at Camp Con cordia.See TROW, Page 4
Newspaper Details
Salina Journal
Salina, Kansas, US
Mon, Oct 04, 2010
Page 21
Full Page
Clipped by
Salina P.
KS, USA 22 Jun 2023
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