Oscar Hjalmar Johanson thought he’d left economic hardship behind when he boarded the RMS Lucania for America at age 18. In Chicago, the young Swedish immigrant reinvented himself, earning a pharmacy degree from Northwestern University, building a career as a neighborhood druggist, getting married and raising a family.
When Rafaela Prieto Núñez crossed the Rio Grande to attend school in Laredo, Texas, she was only 16 years old. She did not arrive by chance. She came because an uncle believed that education could change the course of a young woman’s life—and because she was determined to prove him right.
William Witte, great-grandfather of Immigrant Hall of Honor board member Jim Witte, was a farmer, father and businessman who immigrated to the United States from Germany as a teenager in 1884.
By the time Konstanti Cybulski entered the world on August 24, 1892, Poland had ceased to exist as an independent nation.
