The daily Alaskan., 1907-05-16
Romance of Ellis Island
UOrlgInaLI

] extracted from the most unromantIc i thing in the world, an emigraut ship. l It only remains for the story teller to put 1t in form. It is not a tale of ! young lovers. Iu the conventional story romance ends with marriage l Nature knows no such division. Con- 1 ceive an old fruit tree bearing shortly l before lt Is cut down a single bit of | fruit into which the trees vitality has | been concentrated and you have the ! kind of romance you are about to get. ! Forty years ago Herman Gurljch, a ! Prussian, came to America, purchased a farm, married, raised a family and prosDered. His wife died, and one by one hls children left him 10 marry and raise children of their own. For ten years he worked his farm alone, and then 1t occurred to him to relieve his | solitude by rgNisitIug his former home ! In Prussia. He did so. but failed to hnd the diversion he had expected | The place be had left as a village had grown to be a city, and the friends of his youth who had not gone elsewhere were In the churchyard. Disappotut ed, he turned his face again toward his des0late home in America.
 Martha LeOser, a widow living in Berlin with her daughters, had a son in America. Her daughters had been, with her since their birth, but her one son had left her when he was a boy. and she pined to spend the few years that remained to her where she nigh. occasionally see him. At last she could resist the temptation to go to America no longer.
 Now ir happened, This Is a short sentence. an incomplete sentence, yet
 bow much there Is In it. What would all the story telers do If the two words
 were plotted out from the worlds on going? It happened that Heinrich Cur ich and Martha Leoser were passeu- gers on the same ship. One day they sat side by side and fell to talking Gurlich rejoiccd with the mother In her expectations 0t meeting her boy, and Mrs. Leoser grieycd with the old man when he spoke ot Lis return to Lis lonely fgrm. They met frequently on tho voyage aud ou ru1rhmg port parted with mutual regret.
 In New York haTDor. where they landed, Is Ellis Island, a danger point for emjgrauts more to be dreaded than a submerged rock of the ocean. Here they must satisfy the officials that they will not be a burden upon tue United States. GUrllch had no trouble in dO- Ing so and took his departure. Mrs. Lc0ser sent for her son, who lived in one of the euvlr0ns of New York. He came, and for a brief period the moth CT and her boy enjoyed their meeting and the prospect of at least living on the same continent. But the young man failed to satisfy the authorities that he could support hIs mother He had a large family of his own and was at the time out of employment. His mother. too old to support herself had no one else on whom to depend. The decree went forth that Martha Leoser must be deported to her native land.
 Herman Gurlich, in the turmoil of the metropolis, was alone-as much or more alone than he would be when be returned t0 his farm. Tn years he had met but one person of his own genera ton to give him one spark of sym pathy-the woman he had met on the steamer She had shown him a paper bearing her sons address to ask how she might ind LIm. This address Cur llch remembered.
 One evening there was a rap at the door of young Leoscr. and upon its being opened there stood GurUch.
 "Is Martha herGT. he asked. He re membered only the widows frstuame
 'No, and she wilt not be here. She is to be doported,"
 Gurlich went into the house, and his host told him that there was no hope of his mother remaining, since there was no one to support her.
 Yes, there is one,' said the old man after a long pause.
 "Wh0"
 q. If your mother will marry mr and go to live with me on my farm she need not go back to Germany
 In half an hour the two men were on a boat speeding for Ellis island. They found the poor woman bemoaning her fate. Her eyes lighted as she saw her companion of the voyage.
 And here the effort of the story teller to put this humble romance tn story l form breaks down. Never was offer o' marriage made in a form more widely diverse from the conventional proposal | laid down iu printed romonces, The son took his mother aside and told her of Gurlichs proposition. While mother | and son conferred the would be groom stood making pretense of looking at a | family of Russian Jews eating saul sages. h a few minutes Leoser return cd and said his mother accepted the offer. In vain the romance constructor casts about for some stretch of the
 facts to give story form to the recep-
 tlon by the lover Of the news that he
 was to be made happy. Yet why try express what DO words ever have sue