New Canaan resident Louly Kaplan accompanied her grandmother to Ellis Island recently, and the elder woman began crying to see—for the first time—her own mother’s and grandmother’s names on a manifest for a passenger ship from the Old World.
Louly, a New Canaan High School sophomore (and cheerleader), is a Girl Scout, and she’d been trying at that time to land on a project for the organization’s highest achievement: the Gold Award.
What Louly has in mind, thanks at least in part to the experience with her grandmother, is a history of New Canaan as told by people who have lived through it. It’s something Louly said she feels is important, as many New Canaan teens are unaware of our shared local heritage.
She can be reached at looboo@cademo.com if any reader of NewCanaanite.com here thinks they may be able to help.
What follows is a transcription of our conversation with Louly on Saturday—including some more information on just how she landed on this project and some interesting facts about her own family—as she took a break from her part-time job at New Canaan Olive Oil on Elm Street (thanks, Heidi).
“This photo was taken in Russia shortly before leaving. Dianne’s father had come a couple years earlier to earn money for his family when they arrived. Dianne is the baby to the left. The little girl in the center is her older sister and then their mother is to the right.”—Louly Kaplan, NCHS sophomore & Girl Scout” credit=”
New Canaanite: Tell me about the project.
Louly Kaplan: I’m still sort of figuring out what I want to do completely. But I want to find a way to interview some of the elderly in New Canaan who have stories about how New Canaan was built, how they grew up in New Canaan. And I want to do a little scrapbook or a couple of little books or a website or something that I can share with people my age, so they can learn more about the history of New Canaan.
Where did the idea for this come from and what is it for?
It’s for my Girl Scouts Gold Award, and the idea just came from me and my mom talking back and forth about what I wanted to do, because when I did my Silver Award, I had redone the nurse’s office at Saxe, so I wanted to do something different that’s wasn’t redoing a room. I wanted to inform my age group about something about New Canaan, like the history, because we’re not really in touch with our past. Our ancestors.
What’s your interest in that, in getting in touch with your past?
“My great-grandmother Dianne. She came to america from Russia, made a stop in germany and then took a boat to the U.S.A. with her mother and sister. Dianne was two years old at the time. she had to come through Ellis Island when her family arrived here.” — Louly Kaplan, NCHS sophomore & Girl Scout” credit=”
I don’t really know how to explain, it’s just something that I find really important. I went recently with my grandmother to Ellis Island and I learned about her past, and it’s something that I just want everybody to know, the history of New Canaan. It’s something I think everybody should know.
Tell me about Ellis Island. What was that like?
It was really touching. My grandmother started crying because she saw her mother’s name and her grandmother’s name on the list of passengers from Germany.
From Germany.
Yes, they came from Russia to Germany to here.
We should say you’re mother is Caroline from the former Caroline’s Créperie.
Yes, but this is on my dad’s side.
Where does your grandmother live?
She lives in New Jersey.
And it was your great-grandparents who had immigrated here.
Yes.
And what you’re seeking is for people in the town to let you know who you may talk to, to get your arms around this stuff.
Yes.
So how can people reach you, if they read this article and figure they can help you?
Through email or cellphone.
What’s your email? Let’s keep your cellphone to you.
OK. It’s looboo@cademo.com.
What’s that?
It’s the first two letters of everybody in my family’s name.
OK. You guys have a website for your family?
It’s not a website. It’s for our emails.
Thank you.