December 29, 2022
Narration
Bjorg was getting ready to leave Norway to go to America. Her Uncle Louie loaned her the money for her immigration. Her Mama helped her get a loan from the bank to buy shoes that she needed, and for some money for the ship. Bjorg would pay back both of these loans.
The ship was headed for New York City, and the trip would take 10 days. Bjorg got ready and packed a suitcase.
Bessa: I didn’t have much to pack. I didn’t have many clothes.
I had the underwear that I had on. I had an extra pair of socks.
Kristen: One extra pair of socks?
Bessa: That’s all I had.
Kristen: And how long is this trip?
Bessa: Ten days. I’m not kidding you.
Kristen: So what did you do? Were you able to wash clothes on the ship?
Bessa: No.
Kristen: So – in your suitcase, you had a pair of socks –
Bessa: Yeah. I had some goodies with me to give to Henny. Apples and stuff.
And some books for me to read. And also some magazines. And my knitting. In those days, you did not sit and do nothing with your hands. You always had something.
Kristen: You had some clothes packed?
Bessa: I had one dress packed that Mama got from the factory. They had clipped the sheep, giving the sheep wool to the factory. And that factory made material.
And we got the material back cheap because we had given the wool. And then she had a seamstress come to the house and sewed me the dress. And that dress was so itchy. And when you got those dresses, you smelled like a sheep. Ugh – it’s true.
Narration
Bjorg and her Mama took a bus to the town of Kristiaansand, where the ship was docked. It was soon time to say goodbye.
Bessa: We got into the town. Mama was standing on the pier. It was sad.
Kristen: Did you say goodbye to Mama?
Bessa: Yeah. I was standing up on the ship and –
Kristen: On the top?
Bessa: Not all the way at the top. I was sitting in the middle. On the deck. Everybody was there. Everybody was waving and crying.
She did not cry because she was not going to show me that she cried.
Kristen: Did you?
Bessa: Yes. Hey – Left my country. Didn’t know one word of English. Had no idea what I was going to get to. When we left Norway – and we stood on the deck and saw the country disappear. It’s a sad sight.
So now you are out in the North Sea and the North Sea before you hit the Atlantic Ocean is a very, very rough sea. I got deathly seasick. I was so sick. You have no idea. In the middle of the night. So I’m throwing up and throwing up. It wouldn’t stop. It wouldn’t go away. So the two girls were Anna and Gerd, and they said, We’re going to go and find the ship’s doctor for you.
I said, Okay. So the ship’s doctor came down. He gave me two pills. Give me two pills. They were big, big pills. So I took one. It didn’t help.
So Anna got the doctor again and the doctor said, The pill didn’t help? I guess we have to give you something else. I said, Don’t give me those pills again. They were so tough to swallow. I had a tough time getting that down.
He said, You swallowed that pill?! That was a suppository. I didn’t know what a suppository was? I was supposed to put that up in my rumpy. And I swallowed it. Of course it didn’t work. This is the God’s honest truth. So now he showed me what to do with the pill. A few hours later, I was fine.
(Speaks in Norwegian) Take that pill, it’s going to help you right away. And it would, if I had used it the right way!
And we had fun on this ship. We really did. The girls were nice and I met a lot of boys, a lot of dancing. Every night.
Kristen: Every night?
Bessa: Mm-hmm. Nice dance floor. If it was a quiet night on the ocean, you could dance. Sometimes you were – off the floor if a wave hit you. It’s true. It was fun.
Kristen: If a wave hit you?
Bessa: Yeah. If. If the ship went like that, you had to – you couldn’t dance. It was fun.
Kristen: How? What did you dance to?
Bessa: To the band. An accordion, a guitar, and a drummer. There was always a three piece band. Oh, and they had a singer. God, was he good looking. And everybody was in love with that singer.
Up on first class – much better. We snuck up there quite a bit.
Kristen: How do you do that?
Bessa: Well, we got to know somebody up there. Oh, come that way. Go the back way and I’ll get you up. We got up there, even in our sheep clothes.
Narration
Bjorg turned 18 on the ship. When she was young, she said they didn’t make a fuss about birthdays. So she received a big surprise on the night of her birthday, when they went to dinner.
Bessa: So now I had been sick, and I’m getting well again. And my birthday came, and we were going to go in for dinner. And I had the same table with Anna and Gerd. And there was some guys at the table. Everybody had their table for the whole trip.
So all of a sudden, the band is standing next to our table, and they’re playing Happy Birthday. And I had never heard the Happy Birthday song in my life, never heard it.
So I’m sitting there like a dummy and I get a kick from Anna. She says, Stand up. They’re playing for you. She said in Norwegian. So I stood up and I’m in shock. They were playing and saying, singing Happy Birthday to me. That was the first time in my life.
And when they were finished playing, the waiter put a big, beautiful birthday cake in front of me with my name on it.
That was my first birthday cake. And my first birthday party. And my first happy birthday to you. So you see, I was not spoiled when I came to this country.
Now, it’s towards the end of the trip, and the weather has been beautiful the whole trip, except for in the beginning, I told you. And they announced, tomorrow afternoon, late afternoon, we’ll be sailing into Canada. To Halifax – that was going to be our first stop.
When we sailed into Halifax, I’ve never seen anything so pretty. Then we were going to stay there overnight. The next morning, they woke us up with a – like a fog horn. We are leaving. Our next stop will be New York City.
That took us the whole day from Halifax to Manhattan. Before you hit the Hudson River, you go past Coney Island and round that bend. And then the Verrazano Bridge, which of course, wasn’t built at that time. So there was nothing there. And you just kept sailing in. And there you see Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty – went right past that. And she’s beautiful, especially when you’ve been on the sea for ten days now. Wow. And you see all these big buildings and and we docked at Pier 42. That was the Norwegian pier.
Narration
When Bjorg got off the ship, she went through customs.
Her older sister Gerd was waiting for her. Bjorg would stay with her in Brooklyn. Next time, hear about how Bjorg adjusts to life in America.
Another touching story, I loved it.