#52Ancestors in 52 Weeks - Week 3 - “Out of Place”

My paternal grandfather, Edward Eick, was born in Dec 1884 in Warsaw, Russia, acccording to several documents he filled out. Although he was by all accounts German, he was born in a part of Russia, which was really Prussian or Polish. This was likely due to the migration of his ancestors in Russia several generations before at the invitation of Catherine the Great. 100 years later, by the 1880's the welcome for Germans was apparently wearing thin, and many were beginning to feel out of place, apparently, as they began immigrating back to Germany and to places west. My grandfather's parents packed up and left Russia for America in the fall of 1890. I have found ship records of the arriving in New York in November that year. Once again, how out of place young Edward must have felt. Soon after that, the family moved to Michigan. I know little about this move, but a few years after they moved, his younger sister died in Utica and then he lost his mother, as well. Both are beleived to be buried in Utica Cemetery in MI. Later, as a young adult in the Detroit area, Edward found work with the Parke Davis Co., at a farm. He worked there 20 years, earning a pocket watch which I still have, pictured below with my grandparents wedding rings. He married a woman in Detroit from an American English family, who married him on her 18th birthday in 1920, despite being fordidden by her parents from marrying any German. I suspect this was due to hard feelings related to the recent "war to end all wars." Twenty years later, the hard feeling arose again as my grandfather was trying to make a go of his own dairy farm in Metamora, Michigan. I've been told that the family almost went broke due to anti-German sentiments that developed in the late 1930's and early 1940's, and because of the family name and its association with an infamous U-boat captain. Once again, Edward must've felt somewhat out of place. Despite all the challanges in his life, and sometimes experiencing displacements in life, Edward worked hard and managed to run a successful "truck farm" an hour north if Detroit, and provided at least a subsistence farm living for his wife and three boys. He also served on the local school board, despite having no more than a 6th grade education himself. My father always told me that his father could read and write German, but didn't write English well at all. Finally, late in his life, while the rest of his neighbors moved on to indoor plumbing and such, Edward's sons set to work to build him an indoor bathroom so he wouldn't have to trek outside to do his business during the harsh Michigan winters. that was also about the time i met my grandfather, as pictured below. Maybe, for once, in his 80's Grandpa Ed wouldn't have to be out of place!