By Joseph L. Thomas
It is hard to imagine anyone who wouldn’t want to read a true story of a young female immigrant who left her home in Tibnin, Lebanon, with her two children to be with her husband in Dowagiac, Michigan. Written by her grandson as told to him, Anna Thomas’s trip from home began on a camel caravan to Beirut where they boarded a freighter to Cherbourg, France. The family of three stayed at a hotel for immigrants until boarding a tender that took them out in the harbor where Titanic was anchored. The tearful part of the story is that my grandmother could not read, write or speak English. The only way she could express where she was going was a piece of paper that read “Dowagiac, Michigan, USA”. She carried that paper all the way to her destination and experienced the hardship typical of third class passengers. Fortunately, she found room in a lifeboat for herself and her children. The book’s human stories are told with warmth and enthusiasm––there is humor and there is sadness but most of all enjoyable and educational for people of all ages. 119 pages. Illustrated in black and white.
