While dancing with her future husband, Louis, for the first time at a Bastille Day ball, Elizabeth looked at her gold bracelets on her wrist. She thought back to Algeria where a number of the bracelets had to be sold for mere food when her family was forced to live in an abandoned hanger for being Jewish during WWII. After the French lost the Algerian War, Elizabeth had her sixth-grade education and some of the gold bracelets to remember her family by when deciding she could no longer live in her home country. Being sponsored by her sister to come to America, she took a leap of faith by coming to a nation she never even seen before. Once there, she became a seamstress who worked long hours in order to keep from having to sell the bracelets. With every stich, she sewed her way into American life by partaking in the spoils America had to offer leading to her decision to attend the ball that night. Little did she know, her and her husband would go on to open a renowned French restaurant in New York City. With their success, they would go on to buy the buildings the restaurant was located in where they would raise their family. Elizabeth would never go back to her home country knowing she would not be welcomed, so the bracelets are her only reminder of her homeland.

– Jason Oelbaum

Relationship:  Grandchild of im/migrant Grandchild of im/migrant