The Star Spangled Symphony, featuring the Colorado Springs Philharmonic, is made possible by the city of Colorado Springs, Pikes Peak National Bank, El Polmar Foundation, Bob and Katie Lally, and the G.E.

Johnson Construction Company.

And now the Colorado Springs Philharmonic presents the Star Spangled Symphony.

We are going to tell the stories now of some people who came to the United States through Ellis Island.

And we have three actors that are going to help us with this.

Please welcome to the stage, Sheila Ivy Traister, Mare Trevathan, and Tim McCracken.

I was dreaming to come to America.

We had two uncles who came here when they were young men.

And right after World War I, they wrote and asked us if we wanted to come to America.

But they couldn't send for the whole family; they just sent for three of us.

My father and I and my younger brother.

I was dreaming about it.

I was writing to my uncles.

I said, "I wish one day I'll be in America."

We were supposed to get on second class, but we were on third class because so many people were going to America because they opened the doors for everybody right after the war.

It was very, very crowded.

It was absolutely terrible.

And I was sick the whole time; I was very, very sick.

I said to my father, "Take me on the deck and throw me in the ocean, because I can't stand it."

But finally we got here and we came to Ellis Island, and we couldn't get off the boat because there were so many people on Ellis Island.

They didn't have enough room for us.

So, I had to stay on the boat six days.

They ran out of food.

We only had bread and water.

When we finally got to Ellis Island, my father sent a telegram to his brothers to come and get us.

They never got the telegram and nobody came, and we were worried sick.

Then they told us, if nobody's going to come and get us off, they're sending us back to Europe.

Can you imagine how we felt?

My father was crying.

He said, "My God, what's happening?

Why don't they come?

They don't want us, or what?"

Finally, my uncle decided that something is wrong, that he didn't hear from us.

So he had a cousin in New York, so he called that cousin and he came and he took us off.

Yes, I was always dreaming of America.

And I was dreaming, and my dream came true.

When I came here, I was in a different world.

It was so peaceful.

It was so wonderful here.

It was quiet.

You were not afraid.

The doors were open.

I'm free.

I'm just like a bird.

You can fly and you can land on any tree, and you're free.

The village I was born in was Afede.

I was raised in Volos.

From Volos, I come to the United States.

Volos was a waterfront.

Fishing boats coming in and out.

My father was a hard working man, working day and night with the nets on the fishing boat.

My father didn't tell me to go to America or not to go to America.

He didn't say a word.

He figured that I would make up my own mind.

And although I was 16 years old, I make up my own mind.

We went to Pireaus, a ports near Athens, and then we got the boat.

We got up on the deck, and then my father, for the first time expressed how he felt.

We shake hands and he say, "James, I never say to you, go or not go.

I'm very proud that you make up your mind to go to America.

I know you're going to have a better life in America than we have here."

And then he left and he was crying.

He was crying.

Do you know how I felt when I left my home, my father and my mother?

I was the first in my family to come to America.

I was in third class.

75 dollars for the ticket.

There was three in the cabin.

I was on the bottom bunk, this man named Gus and his father was on top of me.

The trip was 22 days on the ocean.

We arrived in New York and we saw the Statue of Liberty, and Gus asked me, "What's that statue?"

And then we're looking at the statue and his father say, "That's Christopher Columbus."

And then I put my two cents out.

I say, "Listen, that don't look like Christopher Columbus.

That's a lady there."

They started examinations on Ellis Island, and I was alongside Gus, and I noticed that he had a chalk mark on his back.

I couldn't reach my back, so I asked him, "Do I have a chalk mark on my back?"

So he looked, he said, "No."

I say, "You've got one."

And I'm thinking, either he goes back to Greece, or I go back to Greece.

So what happened, the one with the chalk mark went back to Greece.

He had to go back.

I don't know why.

I just pray, dear Lord, and thank God, that I was admitted to the United States through Ellis Island, without a chalk mark on my back.

My father spent most of his time going back and forth from Sicily to America, because there wasn't enough work there for a carpenter.

Practically all the Galletta family were master carpenters.

And he'd come back and forth every couple of years.

That's why all my brothers and sisters are spaced two years apart my mother became pregnant every time he came over.

It became too burdensome for my father to keep coming back every couple of years.

You know, that boat trip was no joke.

Then my uncle told him one day that he should take the whole family back with him.

My mother and father came with the two oldest children first.

Then about a year later, the other five children followed.

I was the youngest.

My uncle escorted the five of us to Palermo, and then we came to America from there.

There were a lot of people, all class of people.

Some just came with what they had on their backs.

They didn't even have baggage.

When we hit the Strait of Gibraltar, there was this terrible storm that broke out.

It lasted three days.

The water was so rough that the waves almost capsized the ship.

People were throwing up.

If you wanted to faint, there wasn't room for them to faint.

They couldn't lie on the floor.

There was no space.

These old women were throwing their medals in the water and getting down on their knees and crying.

Just praying to God to calm the waters.

I remember New York Harbor.

It was the most beautiful sight in the world because we didn't die in that storm.

We were alive.

We made it.

We were in America, a free country.

We would be reunited with our parents.

My father came to meet us at Ellis Island.

I can see that almost vividly.

We were in this big room and they called your name out.

And when they called, "Galletta," my father came running through the turnstile, and he squatted on his knees with his arms outstretched, and the five of us came running into his arms, and we were kissing and hugging, and we were so happy to be together.

He said, "We're all together now, and we will never be apart again."

I did not have a normal childhood because there was a war.

A never ending war.

That's all I knew of, the scarcity of food, the scarcity of materials.

We had to fight for a piece of bread; hide it because it was taken away from you.

So when I left, I just came with my shirt on my back.

The Romanians came into Hungary as an army of occupation.

When they came in, they were anxious to get rid of the minorities.

The Jews had nobody who would stick up for them.

The Romanians made Jews turn in their precious stones, silver coins, of which my father had a big amount.

And not only did they take it away from him, but they beat him up mercilessly.

And the soldier that beat him up didn't have the heart to hit him hard.

And the officer hollered, "Hit him hard!"

And before they took him away, he came over to us children: "Let me bless you."

We never knew if he was going to come back because over there, they took you away and you disappeared.

So when he came over to bless us, my mother collapsed and died.

We decided to leave.

Of course, you couldn't come through Germany; it was closed off.

So to reach the port of Antwerp in Belgium, you had to go through the underbelly of Europe.

And it was a trip of five weeks.

At that time, the railroads didn't have a glass pane in their windows; that's how bad it was.

There wasn't a single pane in any car unbelievable.

I noticed, as we came closer to masses and masses of people from East Europe, from the Baltics.

It was waves and waves of people; unbelievable what you saw.

This was an old broken down boat.

The trip was 11 days on the ocean, and we were packed in tight, like in the army when they ship soldiers across.

Nobody ate for the first few days; everybody was seasick.

I stayed in bed a whole week.

The last two days, I finally got to taste food.

Everybody.

Everybody felt much better.

And when I saw the lights, I felt fine; I know we're nearing land.

At dawn, we saw the Statue of Liberty, like welcoming you.

It was such a beautiful feeling.

People started to sing and everybody was happy.

I feel like I had two lives.

You plant something in the ground, it has its roots, and then you transplant it where it stays permanently.

That's what happened to me.

You put an end, and forget about your childhood.

I became a man, here, all of a sudden.

I started a new life, amongst people whose language I didn't understand.

It was a different life; everything was different, but I never despaired, I was optimistic.

And this is the only country where you're not a stranger, because we are all strangers.

It's only a matter of time who got here first.

I lived in Belgium with my sister for two and a half years.

That's where I met my husband, Paul.

We got engaged in 1936 and were married soon after.

By 1940, the war was coming closer to Belgium, and I had a feeling that the Germans would have to go through Belgium to get to France.

I kept on saying to Paul, "We have to leave."

From Belgium, we went to Lisbon, and we stayed there about three months.

We couldn't get a boat, we couldn't get a plane.

Everybody was trying, and everybody wanted to go.

Finally we got a berth on the Nyassa.

It was a small boat.

It must have been a cattle boat.

They just put paint over it, and that was it.

One meal I ate on that boat, the first night.

And after that it was very hard.

We traveled for 12 days.

I couldn't eat.

It was a nervous time.

One day they said there were mines.

Water mines.

Another day a German boat passed by.

We wondered whether we would ever get to America.

I was thinking, "Survive the day."

That's it.

Nothing else mattered.

To survive the day and survive the voyage.

Nothing else.

I didn't cry for what I lost.

I didn't cry for what I haven't got, and I didn't care.

To wash my face, to wash my hands, to keep the child going, and to be well.

That's all.

We got to New York; we were so elated.

We were so happy.

The elation came from the heart.

You could see it on the faces.

That's all you could see.

The faces of the people.

They were in awe.

It's like, we were safe.

That's all there was.

When we landed at Ellis Island, they said, "What do you want?

Do you want something to eat?"

I said, "I want a good glass of milk."

That's all I wanted.

The milk tasted like cream.

It was delicious.

That's all I remember.

Years later, we found out my mother and father were killed; all my cousins; the whole town.

Until 1942, we still had mail from my mother and father.

After '42, the Germans evacuated them, and they became refugees.

I have a cousin who saw them in Auschwitz.

They were put in the ovens.

My husband, Paul his whole family got killed; his father, mother, two sisters, a brother who was married with a wife and two daughters they all got killed in Poland.

He was the only survivor.

If you hate, you lose yourself.

There's nothing left in the world after hate.

I can't hate.

I've never been taught to hate.

Even after pogroms, after all that happened to our town.

My father tried to explain.

I was 10 years old.

I asked that question, "Why?"

There was no answer to it.

There still isn't.

We were 8 kids.

My father and mother was 10.

My bachelor uncle was 11 and my grandmother lived with us.

12 people!

The boys slept 4 to a bed, toe-to-toe.

The girls slept 3 to a bed.

We were poor people, but not dirt poor.

We were poor but we ate.

In 1921, my father died and me uncle Jack assumed command of the family.

He said, "We can't go on.

The economy is nothing.

We're all going to America."

But we didn't go all at once.

Finally, in 1925, I came with my sister.

I was 19.

I had no ties and looked forward to America as an adventure.

My brother Lou had gone to America the year before, and was writing, telling me about the wonderful things he was doing as a cowboy, and how he was with Barnum and Bailey's Circus.

I knew so little about America.

For me, America was cowboys and Indians with streets paved with gold.

I only had the good news, you understand.

I left from the port of Liverpool with my sister.

I arrived in New York Harbor August 1st.

I remember I heard the lookout say, "Land ahoy!"

Everybody rushed up onto the deck to see land, the first sign of America.

I remember rushing up.

I couldn't see a goddamned thing.

I mean, the horizon was the sea.

And then as we sailed closer, slowly, I saw New York coming up, like out of the sea.

And the first thing I saw was the Woolworth building.

That was the highest building in the world at the time.

So the first thing you saw was the top the Woolworth building sticking out of the water.

And then we proceeded, of course, as we proceeded, the building came out of the water and everybody was cheering, "America!"

My God, everybody was yelling and crying and kissing.

And as we came in, of course, Manhattan Island started coming up, and the Statue of Liberty.

But we got off the ferry and went right into the main building.

And that day there must have been three, four ships, maybe 5, or 6000 people.

Jammed!

And I remember it was August, hot as a pistol, and I'm wearing my long johns and a heavy Irish tweed suit.

I got my overcoat on my arm.

It was the beginning of the fall back home, see.

And I'm carrying my suitcase.

And I'm dying with the heat.

And during that day the hall became so hot, and all they had was a couple of rotating fans, which did nothing except raise the dust.

And I just wanted to get the hell out of there.

The immigration officials slammed a tag on you with your name, address, country of origin, et cetera, and everybody was tagged.

They didn't ask you whether you spoke English or not.

They took your papers and they tagged you.

They checked your bag.

Then they pushed you and they'd point, because they didn't know whether you spoke English or not.

Understaffed, overcrowded.

Jammed.

And the place was noisiest, and the languages, and the smell.

Foul, you know what I mean?

And my brother Henry comes to the door.

I hadn't seen him in four years.

And we took the subway to his three room apartment in East Harlem.

And when we arrived, Henry said to me, "Get those long johns off and throw the goddamned things out.

They stink like hell," and he loaned me a pair of BVDs.

Oh, boy!

It was like getting out of jail.

The next morning, my brother says, "I got to go to work.

Take a trolley car and go downtown.

Take a look around."

So I go to the corner, and the trolley car stopped, and I got on.

And I sat down, and the conductor came over.

And he says, "What are you doing, young fella?"

And I says, "Just taking a ride downtown."

"Is it Irish you are?"

"Aye," I says.

"When did you get here?"

"Yesterday.

I just got off the boat!"

He sat down beside me, and he's given me a free tour all the way down Third Avenue.

He's pointing out the buildings, the Singer building, and I was fascinated.

Hey, America is a great place.

I'm only here one day, and this guy has given me a royal reception.

I got off at City Hall Park.

I was feeling very adventurous.

Here it is, a beautiful day, and I'm wearing thin underwear.

And I'm beginning to feel comfortable now; and I walk across the park and I look up and there's a street sign and it says "Broadway."

Well, I want to tell you, that was one of the most exciting moments of my life.

Broadway!

I'm only one day in America, and I'm on Broadway!

I mean, it may sound like nothing to you, but I got so excited.

It's a wonder I wasn't killed, because the traffic was going in all directions, and I was so confused, watching to the left, and watching to the right.

Fantastic!

I walked across the park and sat down on the bench and nobody was bothering me.

No one could identify that I was a foreigner, you know And everybody's acting like I'm a full-blooded American.

I felt like I had the world on a string.

I mean, this was my day.

I finally got back to East Harlem, and my brother came home and I told him about my day.

He thought it was dull and dumb, but it wasn't to me.

It was one of the most exciting days.

And that was my first day in America.

Hunger was a guest in everybody's home.

By our standards, they had nothing.

The majority of the people were hungry all the time.

The only time there was a relief from that poverty was on the Sabbath.

Then the men came home, whatever they were doing, whether they were studying or working, or making a living, and put on whatever better clothes the they had to get ready for the Sabbath.

And went to shul, synagogue and came home, and that was the time there was a decent meal in the house.

All week long it was hunger.

My father left for America when I was two years old.

I didn't see my father until I came here.

We couldn't get passports to get out then.

We were Jews.

It was illegal.

We traveled all night, and before it got light we stopped to hide out in somebody's house.

We made it to the border and then took a train.

We were going to Holland, to Rotterdam.

They had to carry me screaming onto the ship.

That's how afraid I was.

We traveled for 18 days in steerage.

I was so sick all of the time.

I don't know why.

I was one of the sickest.

It was a horrible trip.

As soon as we hit the harbor in New York, it was like rejuvenation.

The water was blue with the sky, it was a beautiful day.

Everybody was laughing and crying that they were here; they're in America.

It was such jubilance that it carried itself over even to me.

A number of friends were there.

Then I saw this man coming forward, and he was beautiful.

I didn't know that he was my father.

He was tall, slender, and had brown, wavy hair.

And to me, he looked beautiful.

He looked very familiar to me.

Later on, I realized why he looks so familiar to me.

He looked exactly like I did.

And I fell in love with him right away, and he with me.

And of course, the first thing I had seen was that lady, the Statue of Liberty.

It was a thing I can never forget to this very day.

Because when I think of her, when I think of the Statue of Liberty, I feel so wonderful and so good.

I don't think there's anything under the sun that could make me feel better.

It seemed that this was a vision from heaven, and it's been with me ever since.

All the wonderful words that were written on it by Emma Lazarus.

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea washed sunset gates shall stand a mighty woman with a torch, whose flame is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles.

From her beacon-hand glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes calm The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

Keep ancient lands, Your storied pomp!

cries she with silent lips.

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!