Emilia Nafe was one of about a dozen people, all of them early settlers to the Highland Park area, interviewed in 1934 as part of an effort spearheaded by Jesse Lowe Smith, an educator and founder of Highland Park’s first historical society.
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Here are a few excerpts from Nafe’s interview:
On the ocean voyage from Germany to New York:
“I remember the boat very well, although I was but 3 years old, and I remember too, my mother lifting me up to look into the water to see the big fish with heads that looked to me like pigs.”
On her school teachers:
“One day, though, I remember the teacher, a young man, falling sound asleep. He had spent a very gay evening at the Tavern the night before. …It was not long before we had a new teacher — a young woman, this time — and ever after that we had women teachers.”