The Autobiography of Ruth Tagg Caley

three days to wait. During that time we saw another air raid and father got his eye hurt on an ironfence, on his way to his hotel. His friends didn't have room for all of us to sleep. The nextmorning everyone was trying to help father by bathing his sore eye and putting beef steak on it.It was pretty bad and we wondered about it, if he would lose his sight. Father was pretty wellshaken up. The lady of that home took our clothes and washed them for use as we didn't have achange of clean clothes.We left home in the clothes we stood up in. Father had thrown in a few shoe tools to fixhis own family’s shoes. He said once he got out of the shoe shop he planned never to go intobusiness again. It was the beginning of a new week, we walked to the docks with what littleluggage we had. We watched the big ship coming closer towards us or it was we got closer tothe ship as it waited at a distance, I exclaimed "Oooo! Daddy how are we little people going toget on that big ship?" It looked like a huge mountain to me. I soon found out a ferry boat wouldtake us out to it. The name of the ship was the "Arsonia." A gang plank was lowered to the ferryboat, we bade farewell to our good friends and thanked them for their hospitality. Our shipbegan to blow its whistle and move, and we waved as far as we could see them until the shoreswere out of sight. My thoughts turned back home and I wondered what my mother was doingand hoped she wouldn't forget to feed my cat.After we got on board ship we were assigned or chose our places at the table, we were notallowed to change after that. My two sisters sat by girls of their own age, while I sat by myfather. About three days after we got started we had to drop anchor and stop the ship on accountof enemy mines in the ocean. There were enemy submarines also hidden out there waiting theirchance to destroy. The One above takes care of us and we felt we would get through alright.While the ship was at a stand still we had to go through a lot of red tape procedure. Everyone had to show their vaccination if you could or didn't have it, the doctor had his needle readyfor you. Father had taken care of that before we left. I remember real well and how sore my fourmarks had been and swollen up till I had to cut my sleeves.There were a lot of questions, father knew there would be. I know he felt uneasy withthat black eye that he got in the air raid. I knew he walked by faith and used to pray a lot. It wasa great responsibility traveling with three lively girls and no mother. He had a hard time keepingtrack of us as we darted about the ship. The twins were thirteen years old and I was nine. Wewere carefree and didn't realize responsibility. We had fun, made friends easily, played hide andseek in the empty cabins. We had a sailor make us a swing down stairs where there was plenty ofroom and we found some old margarine and smeared it all over the floor until it was slick asglass. We would hold the swing and slide. We traveled third class rate but believe me we hadall the advantages of first class. We attended Sunday School and concerts up on first class deck,and we had lovely balanced meals.There was an old man who sat by me who sure liked jam. One time the ocean got prettyrough and the dishes slid down the table. When the old man looked for the jam it had slid downthe other end of the table. We thought several times the waves would come in the port holes andRuth Tagg Caley pg 11