Journal Entry: April 5, 1842

I am married to a beautiful wife whose name is Margaret, and think that she is pregnant. It is hard enough working in Ireland, especially when all the people are relying on you. I work as a farmer, growing and raising potatoes, which are part of the Irish's main diet, hence, our main meals consist mainly of potatoes. The crops are growing bad, and even with my pregnant wife and sometimes a close friend, Patrick helping me with the growing and the harvesting of the potatoes, we can't do a thing about it. I think that something bad is going to happen in the very near future. I can just feel it in my bones. Well, sometime in the next hour, my wife and I have to go into town in order to sell the potatoes. The prices are going down for some reason, and we aren't making as much money as we used to. My father, John has immigrated to America and wanted to bring us with him at the time, but we didn’t have that much money. Now, in America, my father has sent us money to help support my family. The money is sending us, now comes in every four months, whereas before, the payments came every two months. I afraid that something has happened to my father’s health, preventing him from making as much money as he used to. I always dream of sailing across the rough seas, arriving in America, joining my father in his work in the “New Land.”

Our money is short, and all we have to eat are rotting potatoes. If we don’t eat something different, I’m afraid that one of us will come down with a severe disease. I am planning to use all of our savings in order to buy two tickets for a ship to America. My father has already warned me before that the trip there is not a jubilant one and a hard one, but I am willing to take the risk to save the lives of my growing family.

-Thomas