I write this on Memorial Day, and I have a strange request. I believe that we should not only remember the soldiers who died in battle, but also those who made this country what it is today. I am also a stranger in this land.

I am wondering what became or happened to the people shown in the 1908 photo at Ellis Island you published recently in your Sunday paper. I know that the older folks are resting in the soil of this great land of freedom, but perhaps some of the children in the photo are still alive today. I am hoping someone can furnish some information.

Perhaps some of the boys became soldiers, too, 10 years later, and fought for their country so we can be free today.

Just think how hard it was for them to learn to speak English. I had the advantage of learning some in school in Berlin. I had to learn English, as I lived in the American sector, but learned much more since I moved here more than 50 years ago, plus I loved to read and learned more about the early Americans than the people here or their children.

Heidi Weber, Dryden