From Charvieu, France to Ellis Island - 1924

Charvieu, France - 1924 Passenger: Roger Paul Palpant Ship: America Destination: Ellis Island By unearthing the Ellis Island records that they now make available to family members through the website http://www.ellisisland.org/, I discover that my grandfather entered the U.S. on April 8, 1924 as a single man, alone. He had $90 and an unquenchable spirit of adventure. The ship manifest surprisingly indicates that he had no intention of staying in the U.S. or becoming a citizen. In good health, he heads to Lansing, MI without a word of English in his vocabulary. (Photo to the left: 1924 passport picture)

Two weeks ago my parents, brother, sister, and I traveled to NYC for a first-ever family pilgrimage to Ellis Island. Disembarking from the boat, I was as close to my grandfather's immigrating footsteps as I have ever been. I found myself wondering what he felt, saw, heard, and wondered as he entered the buildings with numerous other languages surrounding him.

Before he died from the cancer that overtook him in June of 1991, he wrote over 500 pages of memories - a life that spanned three continents with birth in France, a childhood in Algeria, Africa and eventually settling in the U.S. and marrying an American woman. His French army training took him into the Sahara Desert (Photo center: Grandpa right and his brother Charles left, Sidi Aich, Algeria outside my great-grandfather's home) and World War I found him at my great-great grandfather's home on the Chemin de Fialoze in Privas, France most known for its nougat. His recollections of Ellis are vivid at times and then foggy at others. With English that never was perfect, he writes:

"As immigrants, we were herded on the dock until everyone and a guide were available. After awhile a guide came and made us follow him. We walked to a ferry with all of our belongings, for me this included an old suitcase weighing no more than 20 pounds. As soon as we arrived, they led us into a big room to await our interview and physical examination. It was so long ago I don’t recall all the details accurately. It seems at one time they led us in a big room with at least one hundred iron bunk beds. When a bunch of us were released, a guide led us to the ferry from where we started. We all had a tag like a package going by U.P.S (United Parcel Service). The guide made us purchase a lunch bag already prepared and he bought my rail ticket on the Grand Trunk railway. We were led on a coach where the conductor guided me to a seat. He stuck my ticket on my hat and we started for the unknown.

Not knowing a word of English, I was prepared to communicate with the help of two small pocket dictionaries, one English/French and the other French/English. For some reason I was not uneasy about my outcome. We started toward Michigan with me not knowing at the least where I was in the United States. The only thing I took for granted was that I was headed to Michigan Agricultural College not knowing at all the location of my destination. Come to think of it, I was so adventurously minded I must have been out of my mind."

While visiting Ellis Island this month, I saw photos of the lunchboxes sold to immigrants, and visited a room with the iron bunk beds, and saw the tags with which the immigrants were pinned. It made Grandpa's memories jump to life.

The adventurous spirit that Grandpa had moves me deeply, and I find myself hoping that I can live up to the high standard with which he lived- an adventurous, creative, compassionate, giving soul. Ellis Island reaffirmed that for me- if it didn't do anything else.

Kristof NYT Op-Ed

The Carter Center was featured in Nicholas Kristof's New York Times op-ed column today 20 February 2007. Below is a copy of the piece. I'm proud to be associated with the work! -- RGP

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company The New York Times
February 20, 2007 Tuesday Late Edition - Final SECTION: Section A; Column 1; Editorial

Let's Start a War, One We Can Win

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF T

They were two old men, one arriving by motorcade with bodyguards and the other groping blindly as he shuffled on a footpath with a stick, but for a moment the orbits of Jimmy Carter and Mekonnen Leka intersected on this remote battlefield in southern Ethiopia. Mr. Mekonnen, who thinks he may be 78, is a patient in Mr. Carter's war on river blindness. He is so blind that he rarely leaves the house any more, but on this occasion he staggered to the village clinic to get a treatment for the worms inside him. His skin is mottled because the worms cause ferocious itching, especially when they become more active at night. He and other victims scratch until they are bloodied and their skin is partly worn away. Ultimately the worms travel to the eye, where they often destroy the victim's sight.Ethiopia has the largest proportion of blind people in the world, 1.2 percent, because of the combined effects of river blindness and trachoma. As in many African countries, the wrenching emblem of poverty is a tiny child leading a blind beggar by a stick.As Mr. Mekonnen waited on a bench by the clinic, there was a flurry of activity, and an Ethiopian announced in the Amharic language that ''a great elder'' had arrived. Then Mr. Mekonnen heard voices speaking a foreign language and a clicking of cameras, and finally the whirlwind around Mr. Carter moved on.''Do you know who that was?'' I asked Mr. Mekonnen.''I couldn't see,'' he replied.''Have you ever heard of Jimmy Carter?''''No.''Yet in remote places like this, former President Carter, at 82, is leading a private war on disease that should inspire and shame President Bush and other world leaders into joining. It's not just that Mr. Carter's wars have been more successful than Mr. Bush's; Mr. Carter is also rehabilitating the image of the U.S. abroad and transforming the lives of the world's most wretched peoples. (For a video of Mr. Carter's trip, please go to www.nytimes.com/ontheground.) On the previous night, Mr. Mekonnen had slept under a mosquito net for the first time in his life, as part of a Carter initiative to wipe out malaria and elephantiasis in this region. And Mr. Mekonnen now uses an outhouse as a result of a Carter Center initiative to build 350,000 outhouses in rural Ethiopia to defeat blindness from trachoma.Mr. Carter has almost managed to wipe out one horrific ailment -- Guinea worm -- and is making great strides against others, including river blindness and elephantiasis. In this area, people are taking an annual dose of a medicine called Mectizan -- donated by Merck, which deserves huge credit -- that prevents itching and blindness. Mectizan also gets rid of intestinal worms, leaving Ethiopian villagers stronger and more able to work or attend school. Among adults, the deworming revives sex drive, so some people have named their children Mectizan.Mr. Carter's private campaign against the diseases of poverty, put together with pennies and duct tape, is a model of what our government could do. Imagine if the U.S. resolved that it would wipe out malaria and elephantiasis (both are spread by mosquitoes, so a combined campaign makes sense). What if we celebrated science not by trying to go to Mars but by extinguishing malaria? What if we tried to burnish America's image abroad not only with press releases and propaganda broadcasts, but also with a bold campaign against disease?So I wish that President Bush could visit villages like this and see what Mr. Carter has accomplished as a private individual. Mr. Bush, to his great credit, has financed a major campaign against AIDS that will save nine million lives, and he is also increasing spending against malaria -- but not nearly as energetically as he is increasing the number of troops in Iraq. So I asked Mr. Carter whether President Bush should be pushing not for a possible war with Iran, but for a war on malaria.''That would certainly be my preference,'' he said. ''I thought the war in Iraq was one of the worst mistakes our country ever made, and we're possibly about to make an even worse mistake by precipitating a war with Iran. But I would like to see us shift away from war being a high priority, to diplomacy and benevolent causes.''So, President Bush, how about if we as a nation join Mr. Carter's war on diseases that afflict the world's poorest peoples -- and are one reason they are so poor. That's a war that would unite Americans, not divide them. Come on, Mr. Bush, sound the trumpets!