Have you ever seen handmade ornaments like these before? Well if you did, you would know my great grandmother had made them. My great grandmother from Naples Italy handmade Christmas ornaments symbolizes the hard work she took to come over from Ellis island. It shows how much time and effort it takes just to make one and all the hours it took out of her day just to make these for family and friends but only the close ones. It shows commitment and hard work. It shows also how much family meant to her. What she means to my family and it is something very special. Someone who put family first. Someone who came to America for a better life and succeeded but had a few obstacles in between. My great grandmother came over from Eilis Island in the late 1920s. She didn’t have much of a choice for a job, so she decided to get one in a factory. She kept this job pretty much all her life. She had kept it because she said, “It pays me well, why get into a whole other field”. I was told that my great grandfather made most of the income by also working in a factory. With both incomes coming in they decided to raise a family. However, while raising a family they still did not have much money but that didn’t seem to bother them. In conclusion, they always believed that the importance of a family came before the importance of money.

– John Charczuk

Relationship:  Great-grandchild of im/migrant or more Great-grandchild of im/migrant or more