The anniversary I’m remembering here today is the 79th anniversary of my parents and oldest sister arriving from Persia to New York on September 6, 1947. I’m posting this on the 79th anniversary of the day they left Tehran, Iran on September 3, 1947.
This is the actual airplane (Skyways International) that they traveled on arriving in New York, New York. Our daughter has been researching her grandparents history and has found information and documents we have not seen before. Andrew and Katie searched the Tail Number and were able to come up with the exact plane. Below is the Entry Declaration that they found, too.
These flights were during the Itinerant Migrant air Charter era. (1947-1949)
They embarked in Tehran and disembarked in New York, New York. The last leg of the journey was from Gander, Newfoundland.
My father’s sister and her husband and two children were on the plane, too.
Here is an account of events leading up to their travel in my Pop’s words dictated in Russian to a Russian journalist several years ago. My brother-in-law worked with a friend of ours to translate it into English. Sentences in (parenthesis) are my words inserted to the narrative.
At this time in our lives, (after our sister Kathy was born in May of 1946) my parents began to cultivate closer ties with our relatives in the U.S. In so doing they asked them to sponsor our family into the U.S. Sponsoring was necessary back then. The relatives agreed. As it turned out, only the siblings who had families and my parents had emigration status. That meant that my sister’s family and mine were the only ones who could leave. My parents decided not to come with us because they did not want to further divide the family. Because my father was a spiritual leader in the Molokan church, the immigration officer at the American Consulate advised us to have our American relatives sponsor him as a pastor which would expedite the emigration process for him and the rest of the family. And so it did for they all arrived two years after we did.
We ourselves left Teheran for the United States on September 3, 1947. I will give the details of our trip because it is different than how we would travel today. Our plane was a twin engine Red Cross cargo plane. There were no seats-only benches-and who needs seat belts? Some of us sat on the benches while others laid on the floor. Because our flight altitude was relatively low, we were able to discard Kathy’s dirty diapers out the window. Opening and closing them did not affect cabin pressure. Here is our itinerary; From Teheran we flew to Cairo, Egypt, refueled and flew on to Rome, Italy. We spent the night in Rome. From Rome we flew to London. We were not allowed off the plane and only stayed for lunch. We flew to Scotland and stayed overnight. From Scotland we flew to Iceland and had lunch. From there to Greenland where we spent the night. From Greenland we flew to New York. We arrived in New York late Saturday night, September 6th. ( I think my pop had mistaken the Greenland stop since the travel papers show they flew from Newfoundland into New York.)
We were planning on taking a train from New York to Los Angeles that night, however all our money was in travelers checks made out to my brother John. Union Pacific would not take those checks. We were stuck in New York for the night. We had the name of a Russian pastor and two kind ladies from Traveler’s Aid helped us locate his church. When we arrived he was just locking the doors of the church for the night. He took my sister’s family and the three of us to a hotel which did accept our traveler’s checks. In the morning Nadia woke up and was scared to death because of the height of the room. All she saw were people the size of ants below and this frightened her.
It being Sunday, we went to this pastor’s church morning and evening. On Sunday night one family took my sister’s family and another took ours for the night. Monday morning we notified our relatives of our plight. They wired us money for the train and we were able to leave for Los Angeles. (This was September 8th) We arrived in LA on September 12, 1947.
What a long journey for them with a toddler in tow and with my mom being pregnant and knowing very little English. Mom was pregnant with my sister Vera on this journey.
This is a photo of my parents and sister Kathy after they arrived in Los Angeles.
And that my friends is just the beginning of the story of my parents and relatives settling in the U.S.A. An Anniversary worth remembering for me and my family.
This is a very small portion of my Pop’s story. The last paragraph of his longer story ends this way;
I am so thankful for the unseen hand of the Lord guiding my life. I give all the praise to Him. It is my prayer that readers of my story come to know Jesus as I have come to know Him.
Thanks be to God for leading and guiding and bringing traveling ‘angels’ along to help them with the mishaps along the way! I am grateful to God for leading my parents to the USA and even more grateful to God for saving our pop through Jesus Christ and what that means for our family for generations to come.
The Happy Wonderer ~ ellen b. 