GREGOIRE 1900's: Arrival at Ellis Island 1907

 So, here are Octave and Laure, and their two children, arrived at Ellis Island in New York on Oct.8 1907.  (They couldn't imagine that exactly 50 years later, on that date, their great-grandson Gerard would be born on Long Island!)  They had sailed from Antwerp, Belgium on Sep.28 on the SS Zeeland of the Red Star Line.  The ship actually arrived in New York on Oct.7, but was detained for quarantine inspection in the harbor, a normal procedure at that time.  Customs officials recorded their arrival as Oct.8.

                                             Red Star Line's SS Zeeland.  Photo: Ancestry.com

                                            A 4 1/8 x 2 1/4" card, part of a series about ports 

                                            around the world, undated, in the author's collect-

                                            ion.  Anvers is the French word for Antwerp.

                                            

                                            "Marine Intelligence" from the New York Times,

                                            showing that the Zeeland arrived at New York on

                                            Monday, Oct.7.

Now here they were, standing before the customs official, and answering questions.  A couple of those answers are surprising.

One of the family has told the official that Maurice is a "musician."  I know that my grandfather Maurice worked as a salesman and a window dresser in a shoe store, and then he worked for Metropolitan Life Insurance Company for many years.  I never knew him to work as a musician, or heard anyone talk about it.  He was only 14 years old when he arrived in New York, so it's curious that he was designated as a musician on the customs form.

The other outstanding fact is the address that Octave has provided, to fulfill the requirement of showing that they did have somewhere to go, so would not just be hanging out on the streets:  "40 Gramercy Park, New York City."  Gramercy Park was and still is a very toney neighborhood.  There has never been any story or even a suggestion that someone in the family was wealthy enough to live in Gramercy Park, so I was very surprised to see that address.

Octave indicated that his brother-in-law, "E. Godissart" lived there.  Laure Jamain Gregoire's sister, Jeanne Jamain, married Emile Godissart.  So Emile, at least, was living in Gramercy Park when the Gregoires arrived.  After some research I discovered that in 1907, while Gramercy Park did have a reputation for wealthy residents, there were still within it more modest residences, and it was in a such a boarding house at 40 Gramercy Park that Emile was living.  Octave and his family probably stayed there while they found a place for themselves.  There is more to the story of Gramercy Park:  Laure's brother Leon owned the boarding house at some point.  I'll be telling that story soon.

I didn't see that second page of the ship manifest for a long time after I'd researched the Gregoire's immigration, because I didn't realize that there was a second page of the manifest.  Ancestry doesn't show an abstract of it and I only found it when I pressed the arrow by mistake on the image viewer.  Good mistake!

One passenger on board the Zeeland was detained for questioning in the matter of embezzlement.  His name is not noted in the newspaper article, but there is no indication that it was my great-grandfather.  

                                        

So that's good...for now!