This pearl necklace was owned and cherished by my Grandmother, Margot “Maggie” Smith, and through marriage Margot Pahl (my namesake). She was born in Glasgow, Scotland and had two older siblings, Nancy and Hugh. The death of their mother prompted their father, who at the time was in the military, to send them to America to live with family in the Midwest. Bitterly, the three siblings rode steerage class to Ellis Island. Margot took her pearl necklace with her. After a few short years in the Midwest, Nancy married and moved to California. Both Hugh and Margot went to college and moved to New York. Hugh became a professor and Margot worked as an accountant at Arrow Exterminators in Lynbrook, New York. Margot met and married a German Englishman, who at the time was working for Monsanto, named Elmore Pahl. They had three children: Thomas, Richard, and Hugh. Hugh worked at the same Arrow Exterminators which is also where he met his wife and my mother, Barbara. Grandma Margot was proud of her Scottish heritage and would sing Scottish songs and bake scones for her children. She held these pearls as an important connection to her birth country. When they were passed down to me, they were inside a green box that her sister Nancy got from a Scottish Jewelry store on a vacation. Nancy was the only sibling to return to Scotland. Underneath the velvet lining of the box, Grandma Margot kept $15 hidden, which I later discovered. 

– Maggie Pahl

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