5th Grade Students wins DAR Essay Contest

Fifth Grade Student, Bella, won an American History essay contest from the Peoria Chapter of Daughters of the American Revolution. She will be honored at a banquet in February.

The contest was open to students in grades five through eight. This essay contest was established to encourage young people to think creatively about our nation’s great history and learn about history in a new light. Children are the future of our country, and it is critically important to educate them about the hard-won price of freedom.

In honor of the 125^th anniversary (in 2015) of Ellis Island as an immigration station, the title for this year’s contest was: “A Child’s Journey Through Ellis Island.” On a typical day, immigrants arriving on the island could expect to spend up to seven hours in processing activities intended to determine whether or not they were legally and medically fit to enter the United States. Students are to imagine that they are a child traveling through Ellis Island in 1892 and in their essay they are asked to describe their experience as if they are telling it to a cousin who has never heard of Ellis Island?

Read her winning essay below:

My family and I got on the boat to go to Ellis Island to get to Chicago. Since we didn’t have very much money, we had to stay in the steerage of the boat. The steerage of the boat had so many bunk beds lined up on top of each other, and it was very hot and sticky. The first class section was a lot better than the steerage on the boat, and there were lots of places to sit and many windows.

Once we got to Ellis Island, which took some people weeks or even months, we got onto a ferry boat, which took us to the inspections to make sure that we were healthy. Everyone on first class got to go live their life in America without any inspections. Some people even got sick on the steerage of the boat, but no one usually got sick on the first class section of the boat.

Once we got to the inspection, everyone was asked a series of questions including how old you were, how much money you had, and if you were married. There was one very painful test where they lifted up your eyelid to see if you had one very common disease. I got the flu on the steerage section of the boat, so I had to be detained. My mother and my brother got to go to the next stop without me. This was very scary for me.

There were lots of people in the detaining room with other sicknesses too. I was the healthiest of everyone. I had to stay in the detaining room for two weeks. While I was in the detaining room there was a girl with a very bad disease. She was very contagious. Sadly, I had caught the disease from the girl and I was very sick. No one knew until after two weeks when it had gotten bad. They gave me medicine and I had to be sent back home with the rest of my family. I felt very bad to have to take my mother and baby brother back to Europe too. I was only eight, so I could not go back to Europe alone. That meant that I would not be able to see my father back in America. This upset my family very much.

We got back into the boat with a free ride home. After the long trip we were back in Europe. It was very upsetting to all of my family. We met up with my grandma back home, and I got better medicine back in Europe. I’m all better now. Maybe we’ll try to go back to America another time.