What the Statue of Liberty Means to Me
A family reflection connected to Mary Grace VanDura, granddaughter of Jacobus Van Waes and Sophie Van Landschoot.
This text was written by Mary Grace VanDura in 1958. She was born in 1907 in Lockport, New York, and died there in 1965. Through her family line, she was a granddaughter of Jacobus Van Waes and Sophie Van Landschoot.
The title alone already gives the page a strong emotional meaning. For many immigrant families, the Statue of Liberty was not only a monument, but a symbol of arrival, hope, memory and belonging. In that sense, this reflection forms a bridge between family history in Europe and a new life in America.
Within the broader Van Landschoot story, such a text carries a special value. It is not only about migration in the abstract, but about what America meant to descendants who were born there, raised there, and still carried the memory of their family origins across the ocean.
Mary Grace VanDura belonged to a later American generation, yet her words stand in direct connection with the earlier migration story of the Van Waes and Van Landschoot families.
Text
WHAT THE STATUE OF LIBERTY MEANS TO ME
What the Statue of Liberty means to me
is something the naked eye cannot see.
It's in the heart, and only then
is when you feel it and only can.
She stands in the harbor so tall and grand,
and there is a tablet in her hand.
It shows the freedom we have earned,
and through the years what we have learned.
She proves our nation's liberties,
and even over the many seas,
we hear her voice so emphasized,
we get blinding tears filled in our eyes.
If only people could realize
of what the Lady does symbolize,
then I am sure that they could see,
WHAT THE STATUE OF LIBERTY MEANS TO ME
Source note: written by Mary Grace VanDura in 1958
(1907 Lockport, NY – 1965 Lockport, NY), granddaughter of
Jacobus Van Waes and Sophie Van Landschoot.
Photograph by Hans Van Landschoot, September 2008.