By Ilse Eden
The ship “Lochmonar” was a freighter. We stopped in harbors en route to the US to unload or load freight. I remember Curacao, where we sailed up the middle of the town. The ship went through the Panama Canal. Since we were stateless, we were not allowed to sail through the canal but had to go by train and rejoin the ship at the end of the canal. I loved the ocean and also the attention of the young sailors!
May 19,1947, a day after my 19th birthday, we arrived in Long Beach where we were met by my cousin Ruth and her husband Dick. We drove to my Aunt Kaethe (Mutti’s sister) and her husband Willy’s house, where my maternal grandmother was also living.
Thus began an attempt at a new life. Because of a housing shortage, Mutti and I stayed at my aunt and uncle’s, until we found a room with a shared kitchen. I wanted to become a nurse, but one had to be a citizen to be a nurse, and the training was three years. The wait for citizenship was five years. Uncle Willy said “girls do not need to go to college, they get married” (although both his daughters, my cousins, went to law school.) Off I went to secretarial school and became a legal secretary in the legal department of Liberty Mutual Insurance Company.
Along the way, I worked Saturdays at the May Co., in notions, helping ladies match thread to material, something I knew nothing about. With my commissions, I bought a typewriter and a pair of Red Cross shoes. The office was in downtown Los Angeles, and my treat each day was to go downstairs to the lobby and sit at a counter to have a cup of coffee for ten cents and a piece of apple pie for 15 cents. I developed a double chin and went to a masseuse to get rid of it!
While working at Liberty Mutual, I went to night school, at Los Angeles City and State Colleges, to get my bachelor’s degree. I met many other refugees my age and socialized with them. We went to the beach, went on trips, such as the Rose Bowl Parade, Las Vegas, Yosemite, San Francisco. I dated, but unlike my friends, I was not interested in marriage. During this time, we found an apartment, and I bought a 1947 used Plymouth car and learned how to drive.
In 1954, I received my degree in Sociology (cum laude) and decided to become a social worker. I was admitted to all three then existing schools, and chose to come to Berkeley. That ended my life as a refugee.
