50 Years in America
by
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Our flight from Kingston, Jamaica, to Brooklyn, NY, was interrupted in Norfolk, VA. It was a bad time of the year to fly so far north. All three New York airports were socked in by dense fog. Americans were allowed to leave the plane, but we foreigners had to wait till an immigration officer arrived.
It was a little after midnight when the sleepy officer came on board our modern four propeller Avianca Colombian air liner. He had to adjust the date on his stamp. A kind soul told him that it was January 17, 1953. He stamped our papers and we could now go to the waiting room and freshen up. I phoned our probable arrival time to Papa. He told me that Toni would meet us at the airport.
My sister was waiting for us at the airport. It was a very happy reunion. We had not seen each other since she had visited us in Jamaica some five years earlier.
Mama had gotten Irma's former room ready for us. There was only a single bed in it. I slept on the couch in the waiting room as I had done in 1937/38. We slept most of the first day. The flight had been exhausting. Amy found the bed most uncomfortable. She was seven months pregnant. A thin mattress, stuffed with horse hair, was lying on wooden slats. On top of it was a mattress stuffed with Eiderdown. (Feathers from the Eider-duck. The Eider is a river in Schleswig-Holstein where those birds migrate and feed in the winter.) It was more like a comforter and not nearly thick enough.
As a child, in Hamburg, this bed had been my bed. I had not known anything else, so I never remembered how hard that bed really was. However, it had a very nice, thick Eiderdown comforter to keep Amy cozy and warm in that cold January and the apartment was well heated. Papa certainly had not gone to any expense to put us up, and Mama had no say in money matters. We did not really expect anything else. We were just happy that all had gone so smoothly thus far.
Mama was overjoyed to have me "home". She did everything she could to please us, but Papa asked me right away how I was going to provide for my wife, my child, and myself. I had to take the humiliation and felt most unwelcome. I had only $ 900.
In Jamaica that was a lot of money. In 1938, after I had studied how to make neon signs in New York and returned to Jamaica, that was a lot of money in the U.S., too, but this was not 1938! Now, in 1953 it would not have lasted too long if we had tried to look for our own apartment. It would have gone quickly, especially here in New York.
Early in the morning after we arrived, Papa told me that he had made arrangements at the Doctors Hospital for Amy's delivery. It was one of the hospitals he normally sent his patients to. That was very consoling. I took a subway to my former supplier, the Tube Light Co.
Mr. Samuels was happy to see me. He had once visited Amy and me in Kingston. He was the Chief Executive Officer now. The firm had certainly expanded into a very large sign supply company. When the late Mr. Müller had been in charge it was strictly a neon supply store.
Mr. Samuels told me that in New York neon was still tied up by Local 3 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (I.B.E.W.), and that I would not have a chance to work in any of the five boroughs as a neon man. He was very helpful by giving me a list of all of his customers outside of New York City. He regretted, of course, that I was no longer his customer, but he hoped that I would soon be back in business and buy from him. We chatted in his large, tidy, paneled office for almost an hour. He had a way of making me feel good and much more optimistic.
As soon as I got back to Brooklyn, I wrote my résumé and sent it to all of the shops on the Tube Light list. I hoped to get an answer in a week or so from at least one of them. In the meantime I was going to take it easy and enjoy a little vacation with Amy. The last couple of years had been hectic, especially because of the birth, long suffering, and eventual death of our first-born, Michael. I looked forward to feeling at home with the family for a few days.
It was a vain hope. Papa was annoyed that Amy did not play bridge. I was recruited to play skat, a German card game, with him and Mama. For skat you only need three players. I enjoyed that game very much. When Toni came over I was either bumped or we played bridge.
There was one very bright spot, however. It was Mama's 70th birthday on the 11th of March, 1953. We celebrated it by most of the family coming to the house. Herbert had come from Europe. He did not miss the opportunity to scold me for coming to the U.S. and to become a burden on my poor old parents. Dorrie and Gerhard and their three lovely children had flown in from Jamaica. Irma and her daughters, Lynn and Anne, had come from Oh
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About the Book
Arnold, the third son of Dora and Paul von der Porten MD, was born in Hamburg, Germany in 1917. There came Hitler’s rise to power. Arnold’s father was an analytical thinker. On October 14, 1933 Paul sent Arnold, only 15, to Jamaica, British West Indies, with new clothes and M100, the maximum allowed to emigrants. Thus he escaped. Several relatives were murdered.
Arnold describes his adventures, including those in World War II, in his book: The Nine Lives of Arnold. In 1953 Arnold and his wife, Amy, migrated to America, to his aging parents. Many who have read The Nine Lives of Arnold have begged Arnold to write his life after Kingston, Jamaica. This book tells. No-one shall be bored!
About the Author
Arnold, the son of the highly respected doctor, Dr. Paul M. and Martha Dora von der Porten, was born in Hamburg, Germany. He saw the rise of Hitler. On October 14, 1933 his father sent him to Jamaica, British West Indies, with a trunk full of clothes and M100, the maximum amount of money the Nazis allowed people to take out of the country. The boy was only 15 at the time. At least that way he did not share the fate of several of his relatives who were murdered by the Nazis.
Arnold describes his many adventures
including his internment during the Second World War in his first book: The
Nine Lives of Arnold.
On the 16th of January 1953 he and his wife, Amy, decided to migrate to the United States. There was a lot of unemployment in this country at that time. Fortunately Arnold had a trade, neon glassblowing, which was very much in demand. Still, it was very difficult for a foreigner to get established. Not until he graduated from the Rutgers University in 1965 did life gradually become easier. By that time Amy and Arnold had four lovely children.
Now, after very eventfu150 years he shares his story with anyone who is interested in the happenings in the U.S.A. during the second half of the 2Oth century. Many people who have read The Nine Lives of Arnold have begged Arnold to write how he fared after he left Kingston, Jamaica. At last his readers have a chance to find out, and they shall not be bored. That is a promise.