Across Oceans and Continents

These were one-way tickets on an ocean liner. A journey that was years in the making and that would forever change the course of their lives and of their family’s history. The journey across oceans and continents was so expensive and they had saved for so many years, they didn’t know if they’d ever return to their homeland. Ella recalls: “It took everything we had to get over, so there was no way of coming back.”

After converting to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in June 1932, Ella’s parents started making plans to emigrate to America. They would leave their homeland, their family, friends, occupations, and the comfort of a communal culture...to buy one-way tickets on an ocean liner.

It wasn’t fame or fortune that called to them, but the desire to gather together “in Zion” with other members of the Church and to receive the blessings of the temple. At that time, the only operating temples of the Church were in the United States and Canada, and there weren’t any announced plans to build any others in Europe anytime soon.(1) If families wanted to receive these saving ordinances and be sealed together, they made the sacrifice to emigrate.

Mesa, Arizona,would be their final destination, near where their missionary friend and sponsor John Freestone was living.

But Europe entered World War II in 1939, and their plans to emigrate were put on hold. During those war years, George served faithfully as the branch president of the Aberdeen Branch of the Church, one of only four branches of the Church in Scotland at the time.

After the war ended in 1945, their preparations resumed: Not only continuing to save what money they could, but preparing documents, passports and visas, medical records, and tickets, as well as selling virtually all that they owned (including the hand-crafted furniture that George had made) and bidding farewell to family and friends.

George's ticket for the train that would take him to
Southampton, to board the Mauretania.
Image source: Life History of George and Kate Findlay

They traveled essentially with the clothes on their back, and they also took along some of her father’s tools and books (he loved to read). Ella would have liked to have taken her special doll, or her uniform blazer with the embroidered patch on the pocket from the prestigious Central School that she attended (a college prep school) - unfortunately, these treasures were left behind. She did, however, bring her Mickey Mouse Club pin, which she still has today.

SS Mauretania

Their family wouldn’t make the journey all together but in three different waves. George (age 45 at the time) would depart first to pave the way for the rest of the family to come. He boarded the SS Mauretania in Southampton, England, on 14 December 1948, and they entered the port of New York on 20 Dec 1948. He then traveled across the United States by train, arriving in Queen Creek, Arizona,(2) on Christmas Eve.

Ella recalls that he wrote a letter to her while passing through cities and towns along the way, describing decorated Christmas trees and lights that adorned each station. This really piqued Ella’s imagination and curiosity, as such decorations were quite uncommon in Europe that was still recovering from the war, and for their family, which never had a Christmas tree when she was growing up.

While George was establishing himself and getting a home ready for his family in Arizona, Ella, her sister Ina, and her mother (Ursula Katherine Bruce Beattie - she went by "Kate") stayed with her paternal grandparents, George Findlay (senior) and Charlesina Smith Love, at their home on Ferrier Crescent in Aberdeen.

There they stayed until May 1949, when Ella and her mother embarked on their journey. Ella was now 15 years old, her mother was 44. They boarded the train at the Aberdeen Train Station in the center of town, Ella’s grandmother Charlesina saw them off at the train station, as well as two of her father’s sisters, and perhaps a cousin who was her age.

They first headed to London for a few days, where they visited with the mission president, Selvoy J. Boyer, and also took time to go to the theater, to see “Annie Get Your Gun.” From London, they took the “boat train” to Southampton, England, where they would board their ocean liner, the SS Washington, on 13 May 1949 for the eight-day trans-Atlantic journey.

From an album Ella compiled

SS Washington

The SS Washington was a luxury liner of the United States Lines, traveling from Southampton to New York City. (Source) They traveled by either tourist or third class, and Ella’s impression was that most of the other passengers were also emigrants, including an Irish father and his three sons that shared the table with them in the dining hall, with whom they enjoyed socializing. On board the ship, there was plenty to keep them busy: movies, dancing at night (though they weren’t involved with that), and passengers could walk out on the deck to get some fresh air.

From an album Ella compiled

Their cabin had eight beds (bunk beds that were two deep) and a good-sized window - “It was roomy enough....It was very airy and bright.” The dining hall had long tables for eating, not super fancy but still nice. Ella describes the food onboard as being all-you-can-eat and “wonderful!” You have to remember, “We had come out of rationing. Everything was still a spare living. All the food that we had [on the ship]! And these Irish boys, oh my gosh, could they put the food away! We were just amazed!”

Early on 21 May 1949, their boat sailed into the New York Harbor. Ella and many of the other passengers woke up early that morning to greet the NYC skyline and wave at the Statue of Liberty as they came into port. Can you imagine the excitement?

NY Harbor, 1949

Ellis Island happened to be closed at that time, so the immigration officials came on board their ship to review their papers and clear them for entrance to the United States. They had to have a physical before emigrating, including a lung x-ray. When the immigration officials got to Ella, they took out her x-ray and paused and kept looking at it; “Scared us to death! What were they seeing? Finally they put it down and said, ‘Ok, you pass.’” Phew!

From the harbor in New York, they took a taxi to Grand Central Station, where they would board a train that would take them to Salt Lake City. They had several hours before the train disembarked, so they took advantage of the time to explore the station and gorge themselves on food, including milkshakes. They didn’t explore much beyond the station, however, for fear of getting lost and missing their train.

Ella returns to Grand Central Station - August 2005

Their total train journey took about two days and two nights, changing trains in Chicago. They landed in Salt Lake City, where they were met by Ella’s father, and they spent a few days touring around and spending time with a cousin(3) who was also a member of the Church. Ella’s mother had discovered this relative through her genealogy research; they were related through the Bruce line in the Shetland Islands and they had converted to the church while living in (Liverpool?) England.

From an album Ella compiled

From Salt Lake City, they traveled by bus to their final destination in Arizona. Ella sure liked Salt Lake City and the few days they spent there, and often comments about how the scenery from that point on just got more and more brown and hot the closer they got toward Arizona. “By the time I got my feet on the ground, I had an instant nose bleed!” thanks to the combination of heat and altitude. Hah! It was now the end of May.

Ella’s sister, Ina, would make the long journey from Aberdeen to the United States by herself, also sailing on the SS Washington. She arrived in New York on 14 October 1949, five months after Ella and their mother. She was 21 years old.

I wonder what thoughts were going through George and Kate's minds all those years that they were preparing, during the voyage, and when they arrived in Arizona and their family was finally all reunited again. America didn’t necessarily offer them greener pastures, either literally (they settled in Arizona, after all) or figuratively: It’s no small task to start a new life from scratch.

Ella supposes that the transition might have been easier for her mother than her father: Her mother was an only child and her parents had already passed away, while her father was the oldest of 11 with his parents and many siblings still in Aberdeen.

For Ella, she doesn’t remember any bitterness or much sadness about their move (except for leaving her grandmother), but there was certainly some excitement to be reunited with her father again, and perhaps a bit of apprehension about the future also. The hardest part she says was while they were on the boat, pulling out of the harbor, thinking “This was it! This was it!” It was a little sad, especially because she wouldn’t see her “dear sweet grandmother” Charlesina again, but it was an adventure.

Ella’s parents did return to Scotland one last time, perhaps five or six years after they had emigrated, this time traveling by airplane rather than boat. Her father had a difficult time, however; he was so homesick for his homeland that he reluctantly returned America. “From what Mother said, he did not want to come back. ‘We have to go back. Our girls are there. That’s where we need to be.’ And so he did.”

Ella often comments about how she’s grateful that circumstances were such that she was 15 when they emigrated. Why? It meant that she was older and could remember her homeland and her heritage much more clearly, something that is so dear to her.

And of course Ralph is grateful that Ella’s family emigrated as well. He likes to joke that their 5 children were up in heaven saying, “Ok, Ella’s in Scotland, Ralph’s in Arizona…we’ve got to get these two together...” And indeed, looking back at their marvelous journey and all that’s transpired since then, we can see that there was certainly some heavenly help in guiding family members to where they needed to be.

From an album Ella compiled

Notes:

The first LDS temple in Europe (and 9th operating LDS temple) was built in 1955, in Bern Switzerland. Source.
Their sponsor, John Freestone, was living in Queen Creek, AZ.
This cousin’s name was Louise Undine Loftus Anderson Clark. She was a second cousin of Ursula’s/Kate's, a descendant of Robert Bruce (1804-1852) and Mary Young (1795-1842) in Shetland. Undine lived in the avenues of Salt Lake City, near a cemetery.

Source: From phone conversations between Ella and KF, recorded on 6 July 2014. Also an additional conversation on 26 October 2014 (unrecorded, but notes taken).