The first word to reach Providence came the day after the Shortsville docked, in a dispatch from New York. The children had told the ship’s officers that they had an uncle in Providence named Carl Benson, and the steamship line promised to look for him.
Transcription
The text is copied as printed. Words in [square brackets] are my corrections of printer’s errors.
LITTLE STOWAWAYS CLAIM THEY HAVE RELATIVES IN R. I.
John and Bertha Benson, 13 and 11 Years Old Respectively, Held at New York on Arrival from Sweden. — Say That Uncle Lives Here.New York, Dec. 20.—John Benson, who is 13, with is [his] sister, Bertha, who is two years older, but who gallantly admits that John is the head of the remnant of the Benson household, arrived yesterday from Gothenburg, Sweden, by the France and Canada Line freighter Shortsville, listed as stowaways.
They admitted it, but their standing as real passengers was restored by F. F. Potter, marine superintendent of the company, who boarded the Shortsville and presented the children their passage as a Christmas gift. He also told them they could stay aboard the ship until their relatives in Rhode Island, about whom they were a bit misty, could be found. They have an uncle, they say, in Providence, whose name is Carl Benson.
John and Bertha were born in Worcester, Mass., of Swedish parents. Their father died and their mother decided to go back home with the little ones, who were then much littler than they are now. Life in Gothenburg was pretty hard, especially for youngsters with small knowledge of the Swedish tongue, and they were so much overcome with longing for their native land that they decided, when they saw the Shortsville flying the Stars and Stripes, to start for the United States with her.
They had no trouble getting aboard on the excuse that they were Americans and wanted to look over the ship. Perhaps an American officer or seaman may have overlooked them or even connived at helping them westward. Anyhow, they stayed aboard and did not make themselves known to Capt. Clark until the ship was too far out to turn back, just as if any sympathetic and patriotic skipper would turn back anyway with young Americans ambitious to get to America.
Johnny said after he had been taken before the skipper and told him that he expected to pay for his passage and that of his sister’s after he arrived here and got work that paid more than a mere living. The skipper thought that a job as a mess boy might be a good thing to start Johnny on, and Johnny received the news joyfully and did his work well all through the stormy passage. The skipper gave up his quarters to Bertha.
When the ship docked yesterday the children were held pending an inquiry by the immigration officials. When Mr. Potter came along and told them that they need not pay for their passage, as the line had decided to make it a Yuletide gift to them, they rejoiced. The line will try to find the Rhode Island relatives.
The Evening Bulletin, Saturday, December 20, 1919, page 3
Notes
The steamship line forgave the cost of the voyage. The marine superintendent, F. F. Potter, told the children their passage was a Christmas gift. John had told the captain he meant to pay for both of them once he found work in America, and he worked as a mess boy all the way across.
The reporter says the children knew little Swedish. They had lived most of their lives in Worcester, where English was the language of school and the street.
13 and 11, or 15 and 13?
The headline calls John and Bertha 13 and 11. The story itself says John is 13 and Bertha two years older, which makes her 15, the age every other paper gave. The headline writer seems to have made Bertha two years younger instead of two years older. By her birth record she was 14 and John 12.