Memorial Day is for remembering those who have died while serving in our country’s Armed Forces. Today, Save Ellis Island honors the brave men and women of the military who have passed away in defense of the United States. On this day, many people visit cemeteries and memorials. In National cemeteries, volunteers decorate each grave with an American flag.
When we think of a hospital, we think of operating rooms and patient rooms, but often fail to recognize that some of the most important structures are things we simply pass through to get to those areas. While corridors may not seem interesting at first glance, here on Ellis Island they serve as the backbone of the hospital, quite literally.
Ellis Island occupies a physical and emotional location no other historic site can match. Ellis Island provides multiple lenses on culture, race, memory and history, through which an American drama of passage, uncertainty and optimism can be better understood.
Ellis Island is hauntingly beautiful. The architecture is magnificent, the views are unparalleled, and the history is palpable. It is the center of global immigration in the harbor of one of the world’s iconic cities. It is a timeless place that personally touches all of us, because all of us have an immigration story.
At the height of immigration between 1902 and 1924, the public was permitted to visit Ellis Island as observers of the “immigrant experience.” The article below written by Ernest Hamlin Abbott, published in the Outlook MAGAZINE.
From 1892 to 1954, over twelve million immigrants entered the United States through the portal of Ellis Island, a small island in New York Harbor. Ellis Island is located in the upper bay just off the New Jersey coast, within the shadow of the Statue of Liberty. Through the years, this gateway to the new world was enlarged from its original 3.3 acres to 27.5 acres mostly by landfill obtained from ship ballast and possibly excess earth from the construction of the New York City subway system.
Carole Lee Limata, RN, MSN will host a reading and book signing of Ellis Angels, followed by a tour of the un-restored immigrant hospital, the setting used for the book! Ellis Angels is the heartwarming fiction story about the compassionate nurses of Ellis Island, the ladies-in-white, and the loving care they gave their immigrant patients at Ellis Island Hospital in the 1920s.