My grandmother, Bapcia if you will, came from Poland at the beginning of the 20th century along with many others escaping political strife and hunger. Dad always said his mother was 13 when she left everyone and everything she had ever known to set out for a new better world in Chicopee MA. She had $2 and was met by a cousin she had never met. She lied to immigration and said she was 16 so she would be allowed into the country. This made legal trouble for her many years later when she was the married mother of seven children. She got a job, met a nice man from near her home in Poland , they married, started a business and lived a fine life. -Judy DiCristofaro, CLF
How did your ancestors seek a better life for their families? Did they flee somewhere, fight back against enslavement or genocide, start over in a new land?