Galveston has been called the "Ellis Island of the West," a significant port of entry for Eastern Europeans at the turn of the 20th century. One of the families who sailed to this southern port, seeking a new life, was Vincenc Bulanek, with his wife Anna and six children.
The Bulaneks were Bohemian. They arrived on the steamship Ellen Rickmers on 28 December 1898. They had left the port of Bremen more than three weeks earlier. The manifest of the ship lists their last residence as Brevnice, 50 miles southeast of Prague in what is now the Czech Republic. Vincenc called himself a farmer and stated that their destination was Houston. He had $66 in his pocket.
Their new homeland was not kind to this immigrant family. Within eighteen months, the children had lost their parents and were living in St. Mary's Orphanage, where they are found in the 1900 census of Galveston. Although most of the children in residence were Texans, there were a few others who were foreign-born. The Bulaneks were the largest sibling group found in the list of over 70 children. Had they struggled to learn their new language? Their father reported that the oldest children, Fransiska and Fransisek, were able to read and write upon arrival. They were 13 and 11 in 1900. Then came their father's name-sake, Vincenc, at 9, Marie, who was 8, Josef 6, and Stepan, 2.
There is no reason to assume that the Bulanek children had found another home within the next few weeks, before the devastating hurricane in September. They would have been among the children who died with their protectors at the orphanage that day.
No comments:
Post a Comment