Q&A: Pete Ames
Opening files on lives of ancestors
Pete Ames was astonished when he first leafed through dozens of old files from the long-closed Niagara Falls International Institute.
Case files detailed the lives of newly arrived immigrants living on the East Side of Niagara Falls after World War I.
The pages are a treasure trove for people researching their family histories, and Ames, a fervent genealogist, knew the information had valuable clues to trace one’s ancestry.
Ames, who is president of the Friends of the Local History Department in Niagara Falls Public Library, along with Tina Placek, has been working on a project to index the names of people listed in the case files so that family members can access the information. He is also working to compile a history of the institute.
Ames spoke with The Buffalo News recently about how he ended up with the files, what the institute did for immigrants and how to preserve what’s left of the heritage of the East Side.
How did you get involved in this project? What about the International Institute piqued your interest?
About a year ago, someone gave me case files from the institute that basically were saved from annihilation because they had no home. I guess someone had tried to contact the [International Institute] in Buffalo to see if they wanted them, and at the time, they didn’t have any interest in them. So rather than see them get tossed in the trash, they gave them to this individual, who in turn, knowing my love of family history, gave me the case files.
There are hundreds and hundreds of people in here, probably about 90 percent of them were Polish, of the files that I have. What happened to the remainder of them, I don’t know.
I have the files on hundreds of people from the ’20s up to the ’50s, and there’s a
wealth of information in here on when these individuals came to the United States. In a lot of instances, it says what town they were from in Poland and their parents’ names, the boat they came on, all kinds of great stuff for people that are interested in family history.
Being that there is some sensitive information in here, I can’t just put these files at the library itself. So I’m in the midst of making up an index of all the names, which I’ll have at the library. Then if somebody finds their family name listed in the index, I’ll make them copies of the file.
Why can’t you leave the files for everybody to see at the library?
I just can’t leave the records themselves, because there is personal information. It’s great for family individuals, but I just can’t put it out there for the public, because I don’t think that’s what it was intended for originally. They were case files. People ran into problems. If they had a drunken husband or things like that, they went to the institute for help. Anything in daily life that you might experience, being a stranger in a strange land, that’s what the institute was all about.
Plus, they had dances and dinners and all kinds of things that related to different ethnic groups. Not just the Polish people, but Armenians, Syrians, Irish, German, you name it. It said in the one article, they handled over 50 different ethnic groups.
The East Side — which runs along Falls Street — was really known for having many different ethnic groups.
The East Side was a melting pot. Everybody lived with everybody else. That’s where the immigrants went, and then they went to the institute for help. They went to the different churches, and so forth.
Tell me about the institute. What was it’s main mission, and how did it get started in the Falls?
In 1918 to 1919, right after World War I, a group got together to come up with an organization to assist immigrants. In the beginning, it was part of the YWCA, and then in the ’30s it broke away into its own group, and then through the years, eventually the institute became the center for young girls and became the Girls Club. It just sort of faded away toward the end of the ’60s, at least in Niagara Falls.
It’s still in Buffalo, Boston; there’s quite a few major cities that still have institutes, so they haven’t gone away completely. But in the case of Niagara Falls, people are probably sent to Buffalo for help regarding any immigration questions.
But basically, in a nutshell, they were formed to help people assimilate in the United States. Any daily problem, the husband lost his job, or they couldn’t afford coal, or they needed food, or they had a document that they couldn’t read because it was in English and they needed translation, legal issues, banking, insurance, you name it. Just about any daily conundrum that you’d run across is what they’d go to the institute for. They had translators there; there were women that spoke different languages that would help them with their problems. Basically, they were just an aid organization to help people that were unfamiliar with how to deal with things.
What was the experience of immigrants in Niagara Falls like? Are you able to get a sense of that from reading the case files?
It was a pretty difficult time for many of them, especially if they didn’t have friends or family here. If they had friends or family, it was an easier transition, but just to come here cold and not know anybody, they really had a difficult time. I imagine it was hard enough for the people who already lived here to go through the Depression years, but for somebody that had no help and just came here cold, it really had to be a terrible thing to go through. I just can’t imagine it.
Are there gaps in the records that you’re missing? What types of information are you interested in?
In Minnesota, there were microfilm records from 1918 to 1925, which were great, because there’s the very beginning of when it started, which was really important.
There is a report by Elizabeth Howe, who was the first one to come here and run the institute. She was only here about three years, and then she died. She was relatively young when she died, and she’s buried in Oakwood. Her report, which was four or five pages, it’s just fascinating. Here she is in 1919, she comes into the city, and she’s got to talk to the individuals who may help her get started here. For the most part, they were male priests at the churches. It’s one thing to be a stranger coming to town in 1919, and it’s a woman, and she wants to talk to the parishioners and try to help them assimilate, help them get through daily life. The priests are suspicious: “Who are you coming into my area?”
Was Elizabeth Howe a social worker or how did she get into that role?
She was hired by the people who started the institute. She came from Boston.
That was her life, helping people, so she lived in that tenement in 1116 Falls St., and the report . . . it’s just fascinating. . . .
It’s just a snapshot of early life, and it was basically tenement living. You had 10 families living in one house, and it was just a difficult time. And she couldn’t get a lot of help from the people that were here that were in charge. She went to the brand new bank, which had just opened up in 1919, and she wanted offices upstairs. She figured that would be great. Here’s the Polish East Side bank, and the people can come there to do their banking, and we’ll take care of other needs right there, and the bank turned her down.
So that’s when she had to find that building on her own and start there for the first few years.
Did somebody preserve these case files? How did you end up with them?
A woman who did research ended up with them, but she couldn’t use them anymore. She knew that I was getting involved in local history with the Friends of the Local History Department, the library, so she called me and asked me if I wanted them. When she gave them to me, boy, I was pretty much speechless, because, like I said, for somebody that’s looking for family facts, these things are just unbelievable.
Just this one here, it gives the woman’s name, where she lived, where she was born, when she became a citizen, whom she married and when, their children, where the children were born, the dates their children were born, and that’s just one piece of paper. You’ve got a ton of information that will be valuable for down the road.
That area on the East Side was such an enclave for so many different ethnic groups, and now many of its buildings and residents are gone. What do you see for its future?
I’m hoping that section there at some point can be made into some kind of immigrant museum or something along those lines, that whatever is left can be preserved or saved there.
Looking back at what happened to the Niagara Falls Historical Society and all its problems and issues, all that stuff for the most part, I don’t know how much is left at the library itself, but so much of that stuff is just gone, never to be seen again.
My fear is that’s what’s going to happen. You lose a bit here and a bit there, and before you know it you have nothing.
