Alien passenger for the United States. Excerpt cleaned up for easy reading.
THE SS RHEIN
Stephen Shooster - Family lore speaks of The SS Rhein being mothballed after Dora’s trip due to the damage she encoun- tered along the way from icebergs. Instead, I found the ship was interned at The Port of Baltimore for three years with her sister ship until she was converted into a US war machine and re-christened, The SS Susquehanna. With her new flag, she served proudly with the US Navy until the end of WWII where she continued service as a mail carrier ship. One notable story about this vessel is that she took the same route as the Titanic. She was no stranger to icebergs. Dora boarded The SS Rhein on July 21st, 1910. I imagine Dora as a young girl, shoeless, about 16, green from seasickness, arriving alone, in a strange new land, not knowing a word of English. I have trouble reconciling how she could have done it.
Herman Shooster - I was told, upon arrival, Dora proceeded to go through the immigra- tion process part of which involves identifica- tion. Not speaking English, when asked her name, she used the same name of the person in front of her instead, Goldstein. She thought since she was unmarried her name would change anyway. In this way, Devorah Chumot became Dora Goldstein. Stephen Shooster - The changing of one’s name upon arrival in the USA is an urban myth. According to the ship’s manifest, Dobra Chomut entered America on Aug. 5th, 1910 with $10 declared. She decided at some point to use the name Goldstein, but it wasn’t at the port. The SS Rhein was built in 1899 and was owned by Norddeutcher Lloyd of Bremen. At 501 feet long with a beam of 58 feet wide she had a top speed of 14 knots and offered accom- modations for about 150 first-class passengers, 120-second-class passengers, and 2,500 third class or steerage passengers.
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