Re: Ellis Island Immigration

I believe that it wasn't renamed JFK until sometime after President Kennedy's death in 1964. Before that it was called LaGuardia, named for former New York mayor Fiorello LaGuardia.

Julia in MN

That's what I was thinking, too. But the family history refers to it as JFK, so that's what I remember. (family history being a fancy term for my mom telling the same stories over and over again) :-)

In December 1963 Idlewild Airport (official name New York International Airport) was renamed to honor the recently slain President. The older airport in Queens is LaGuardia.

Ginny in VT - who grew up in NJ and has flown in or out of both Idlewild/JFK and LaGuardia, also Newark the 3rd "NY" airport

JFK was called Idlewild airport before it was changed. This is the international airport in NY. LaGuardia is still LaG. It is national airport, much smaller and near the site of the World's Fair 1964.

My mom and dad and both my brothers are from Britain. They were naturalized as citizens in the 70s. (My mom would kill me for forgetting when! She even made me do a report on it for school.) I am an American-born American, joining the family in 1963.

DH has been able to use Ellis Island records to find out exactly when his grandfather came from Germany, and that the family name used to be spelled Kuhr, but no one knows when it was changed to its present spelling - only that it wasn't at Ellis Island.

My father came from Italy along with his 6 siblings and mother...he came with his sister Rose and his mother and brothers came later he spent about three weeks detained in a cell ....he thought he was going to die, he was so frightened, his mother who came 3 weeks later had their visas and letters of sponsorship with her!!!! No one explained anything to them , there were no translators.

I am pleased and really shocked to find 7 people when you consider that

Newcomer! ;-P

(One of my favorite Stan Freberg bits has the Pilgrims singing, right after they land on Plymouth Rock, "We know every one can't be as American as we. After all, WE came over on the Mayflower!" *snorfle!*)

I haven't been on the site for about a year - but it's fabulous.

My grandfather (father's father) came from Sicily when he was a teenager along with his siblings and parents. I had the ship name and found most of them - although the first names were Italian and not the Americanized ones they ended up with, so I'm guessing who's who.

His future wife came with her family from Poland, but I didn't find their ship the last time I looked. Every piece of paper I have about her has their last name spelled differently and she has 2 different birth dates.

That generation wanted to be "American" and didn't want to speak in their foreign tongue. My mother's father was French, but he wouldn't teach her French because he said "you're an American", you don't need to know it. Too bad learning foreign languages at home was lost that way.

Barb Quilts aka Barb C . .