TWO OLD FAMILY EMIGRANT CROSSINGS WITH THE EUGENIO C AND THE AQUITANIA

As I said, this is our first crossing aboard one Transatlantic Liner.

But not the first one in our families.

Let me start with my own family.

In the late 1950's I went to the Barcelona (Spain) harbor for the farewell of a brother of my uncle César.

He was going to Argentina, as an emigrant.

My memories are still vivid and dramatic of the last moments with all my parents and family trying to extend the minutes of the last goodbye with just hugs and hugs, kisses and more kisses, tears and no words.

Be an emigrant at this time was like leaving your country and your family for ever.

Fortunately, he and his family started a very successful furniture business near to Buenos Aires and some decades later they were able to travel back and for from Argentina.

The ship was the Italian EUGENIO C that was completed in 1958 and sailed for 15 years for the Costa Line.

In December 2000 (as the Seabreeze), the old EUGENIO C during a voyage without passengers, had an engine failure off the coast of Virginia and eventually sank.

More dramatic and sad was perhaps in September 1921 the crossing of my wife's father (then three year old) with his parents and sister, leaving Southampton aboard the AQUITANIA and heading to America.

Like many other Welsh emigrants, John, Catherine, little John and little Joan, they arrived to New York and were sent directly to Ellis Island.

I found a few days ago the records of their disembarking.

We don't have pictures of them at this time.

In our house in St. Davids (Wales, UK) we have the British family passport with the photo of all of them.

No one of them is alive today.

Deborah's father, like many proud first generation of American immigrants, never wanted to return to his birth country.

He went to the II World War as an U.S. soldier and in Burma and India found some of his Welsh relatives, fighting under the British flag.

Trying to find the roots of these old crossings I saw many pictures and drawings of the "third class" passengers that sailed not for pleasure but for survival, looking for a new life in a new land.

What a contrast with our first crossing on the majestic QE2 and in a Q2 stateroom with a private balcony on the top of the ship at the Signal Deck and at the Queens Grill.

In the next posts I am going to share with you some of these images that tell some of the most dramatic an epic stories of all time aboard these legendary grand liners.