My Hard Life Lived Well

This book is the second Volume of the memoirs'' story of Maria Banfi Kardos. This volume gives an insight into the experiences. challenges, and hardships that the Kardos family faced on their legal immigration to America. They arrived in New York in 1956 just like many foreigners that "Wanted to have an "Opportunity to achieve The American Dream."

We were sponsored by a farmer in Patton Missouri but decided to go off on our own. The Lutheran Organization had flight tickets ready for us, but we respectfully declined. With our eyes wide open and our hopes running high we ventured out into New York City, being disappointed on a few levels. The first one had me actually had me thinking of reversing course and if we had the money we would have returned to Europe. The other was our contact person, family in New Jersey that we came to see somehow conspicuously fell through, "Yes come see us when you arrive in the states." Not to be deterred by these setbacks, we had no choice but to push forward. And the New York taxi driver that drove us all around the city only to take Eighty Dollars of the One Hundred Dollars we were given by US Customs. By Gods saving grace we found a contact who spoke Hungarian in massive New York that My Karl met in the displaces persons camp in Austria and stayed in his apartment.

We then rode the train to Philadelphia and then boarded one to Cleveland. By chance we ran into a man that spoke Slovenian and coincidently he was traveling to Cleveland. We arrived in Cleveland Ohio with a mere few dollars to our name and three very sleepy and exhausted children. Noe our lives really start, no practice runs, no going back, this is it where we make our successes and chart our destiny with the help of God Almighty.