Becker Family

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Johann
1875-1951
Benjamin     
                                                                        1908-1917                                                                       
G154 and G155





    Johann Becker and his family were part of the huge immigration of East Europeans that poured into the United States in the early 20th Century. As was common for immigrating families, Johann made the transatlantic voyage first; his wife and five young children, aged 8 months to 8 years followed the next year, sailing from Bremen on 29 July 1911.
    They established a home on Morgan Street near the old Murray School. America was the land of promise to be sure, but immigrant families had to work hard to maintain a livelihood. Johann’s two oldest children were already working at ages 15 and 16 at the Van Raalte Silk Mills on Sweeney Street The family had to adapt to the American lifestyle and learn the English language.
    Six years later, tragedy struck the family in the summer of 1917 when young son Benjamin, who had crossed the Atlantic Ocean at age two, drowned in the Erie Canal near the Grand Island Ferry landing at age 8 while playing on a partially sunken tug boat with a friend. Benjamin’s Sunday School classmates erected a special gravemarker to remember him.
    Eighteen years later, Benjamin’s older brother Arthur, almost drowned when his sail boat capsized in the Niagara River near the same spot.

Becker Family


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