“Sweet Land Of Liberty”

Sweet Land of Liberty celebrates the courage, hopes, dreams, trials, sacrifices, and hard work of the many millions of people who have immigrated to America during the past 500 years.  Set in the late nineteenth century, this scene typifies so many who have been the lifeblood of the America spirit.  The account of only one such immigrant family from the period portrayed in the painting is that of the family of Nathan and Emma Groom, who left their native England to make their home in America.

Emma was accustomed to sacrificing for her family because her husband Nathan had, of necessity, traveled widely in search of work since the early days of their marriage.  It fell to Emma to provide and care for her young children.  When Nathan and Emma and their family accepted the message of Mormon missionaries, Nathan felt strongly that his family should gather with members of the Church in the American west.  Emma and Nathan's oldest son, Henry, and Nathan himself immigrated to America before monies were available to buy passage by ship and then by rail for other family members.  Emma and two more of their sons emigrated only when the family had saved enough money for them to do so.  Percy later wrote about their experience:

One bright May morning in the early eighties, mother, my brother Nathan Jr., and myself left so called merry England for Utah.  Mother had sold all the goods and chattels she wanted to sell, and some not being saleable, she gave them away or left them in the house for others to use.  However, Mother had some nice China tea sets and some Dresden ware and other brick-a-brack that she neither would sell or give away and other heirlooms that were dear to the heart of English women.

Things went well at the start.  We boarded the good ship Wisconsin at Liverpool and with about 300 other emigrating Saints from Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Germany, Holland and other parts of the British Isles. We started across the mighty deep.  The old ship was a rather rickety tub and it was in the habit of twisting, yawning, squeaking and groaning as it made its way against the buffeting of the waves, but the Saints were going to Zion, and they made the welkin ring with their Mormon songs.  Strange, but all these nationalities could sing the piece; that is the tune was the same, but the words were expressed differently.  But what lacked in unison of words, they made up in the rendition of such songs as: “Come, Come ye Saints,” “We Thank Thee Oh God for a Prophet,” and “Israel, Israel God is Calling,” etc.

The trip was quite exciting seeing whales, porpoises and other marine animals and birds.  It is strange how long a flock of seagulls will follow a ship and keep up with it without resting a spell.  Some thirty large icebergs were seen on the way as May is a good time to cross if one wants to see these dull, silent, gray piles of arctic glaciers as they majestically float down from Greenland and eventually melt in the Gulf Stream.  One large pile of ice had as a passenger a polar bear.  This boy was no doubt beyond his depths, as when the iceberg melted, which it surely would do, then the bear would be without a footing and while very clever in water, they have to come up for breathing, and eventually the poor bear would become a victim of its own thoughtlessness.  It took a total of thirty days to cross the Atlantic.

The immigrant passengers on the ship Wisconsin crowded the deck, everyone pushing to the rail jostling one another to get their first glimpse of America.  Mother[s] lifted their small children to a better vantage point.  The Statue of Liberty lifted her torch to the new residents entering New York Harbor.  Each member of the family read the inscription on the base of the giant lady which reads, in part: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teaming shore, send these the homeless, tempest tossed, to me.  I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

My mother never thought that Uncle Sam [would be] so keen nosed to search through her baggage.  They spied the sets of china, the Dresden plate and other brick-a-brack and immediately put the usual tariff charges against it.  This placed her in a position to either leave her precious goods in the hands of the government or pay the charges; she chose the latter.  However, this almost cleaned her out of our passage money to buy food from New York to Salt Lake City.  After shelling out to Uncle Sam, she had in American money the sum of $1.96 to keep herself and two boys in food from the American metropolis to Zion.

Customs completed, we made our way to Grand Central Station in New York to board the train for the four day trip to Utah. With good Scotch thrift, mother made the $1.96 go as far as it could, but even then our food consisted of water from the tap, bread, and canned meat.  The train journey seemed long and our meager rations dwindled to none.  No more food became available until the morning after our arrival in Buttlerville Bench, east of Murray, Utah.  I was so hungry and my stomach hurt so badly I was unable to sleep my first night in Zion.The family had been separated in part for two years, but now their journey to Utah was complete and so was the family....

[Biographical sketch of Percy Groom, courtesy of the LDS Church History Library.]