This is an I-Heart podcast.

Guaranteed human.

This is our American stories.

Throughout our nation's history,

millions of families have stood at the edge of one world and

stepped into another. They left farms and villages, crowded cities, and familiar shores,

carrying little more than trunks, bibles, and a belief that in America, their children might

build something greater than they themselves had known.

Today, we bring you a story from one of our listeners, John L. Jacobson, whose great-grandfather

did just that. John wrote this piece entitled, The Lad on the Shore, to commemorate the

140th anniversary of his great-grandfather's immigration

to the United States. Let's take a listen. What was he thinking? The 18-year-old, as he stood on

the shoreline, facing an unknown future. He was not alone on that Monday, September 1st, 1884.

Two older brothers, a sister-in-law, and two nieces stood nearby.

In fact, hundreds of other passengers crowded the beach where he was.

Young and old, they were all waiting for the word to board ship.

But in one sense, Neil, as Cornelius was called, was alone, as were many others.

He only had one life to live, and he had made a decision that would radically change it.

Within the hour he would be on board a steamship, the SS Ider.

It was anchored just in front of him. It was lined up along the shore, a huge ship,

over 130 meters long, over 400 feet. He had read a brochure about the ship. It was built less than a year before in Glasgow, Scotland, for the Nordertcher Lloyd Company.

It weighed nearly 5,000 tons, had a beam nearly 50 feet high.

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