Passage to Belle Fourche

On a dreary day in the late nineteenth century, seventeen year old Moses Morganstern left home in Poland for America. Within hours of disembarking at the land of the free, he witnessed shocking acts of greed and swindling, exploiting the defenseless. Hoping the episodes were transient blemishes in the American character, he surveyed a broader cross section of the people to justify his vision of the land’s goodness. Sadly he found cheating and persecution even among groups of the same nationality and occupation. Searching for a job with a mercantile business company he was pronounced unemployable by the German/Jewish owners because he spoke with a Yiddish dialect. Undeterred, he quickly identified an unserved market and began selling sewing notions door-to-door. Success followed success, but none hushed the inner voice demanding he find his true purpose. The persistence of his call to start on his journey never accompanied by any hint of departure nor direction, nor distance nor destination stalked him like his shadow and he realized there would never be anything definitive except he must go.