The Ship to America

The Ship to America is a work of fiction based on the experiences of an extended Russian Jewish family fleeing oppression in Ukraine during the first two decades of the twentieth century. Seventeen-year-old Dave Michelbank commences his journey following the footsteps of his older brother to America: first on a horse-drawn buggy; then a train taking him through Europe to the docks in Brussels where he boards a ferry to Liverpool; and finally making passage on the ship bringing him to America. Along the way, he meets all sorts of characters including one who makes him a man" and another who becomes a lifelong friend. He also finds himself in precarious situations including a murder that he never could have imagined having lived all his life in the small village of Kuzmin.

Reaching America at the docks in Philadelphia where he joins his brother to live, work and raise funds to bring over his mother and siblings, Dave reunites with several cousins who are also intent on establishing a new life for the rest of the family. Shedding some of the old and embracing the new-such as altering their name to "Bank", the family struggles to find a balance. Challenges abound in their daily lives some as mundane as putting food on the table and coal in the furnace while they contend with the greater impact of a World War and the conflicts between bosses and workers sometimes compelling them to take sides-as Dave must ultimately do.

Despite the changes, much remains the same. Like those before him, Dave and his wife Celia strive for a better future for their children and descendants. In this sense, Dave's story and that of the Bank family is not unlike that of the multitude of immigrants from all over the world who have made America their home.