This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man. —Hamlet Standing high above the departure pier and gripping the guard rail on the ship’s upper deck, the eight-year-old boy felt the adventure and fear of the moment. Initially it was saying good-bye to family, friends, and the homeland, but later it would be sailing the North Atlantic and arriving in Hoboken, New Jersey, at the Holland-America Line’s disembarkation pier. He did not have a good sense of the encompassing nature and implications of it all. Little did he know that the North Atlantic is not a nice sea to sail in the middle of March, nor did he comprehend that a different language, culture, and set of social practices would face him. He did not fully appreciate that the decision by his parents to pick up and leave, with four boys under the age of nine in tow, was predicated in long hours of thoughtful and oftentimes emotional debate and analysis. He had no way of knowing how the ideals of his mother and father drove the decision to immigrate to the United States. How was he to know how these idealists were planning to translate their ideals into action in the new land?