Another Chance

Ernest Woodward's identity was taken from him early in life by his stepmother. His mother died when he was five, and his older sister and their housekeeper made a home for him while his father travelled in his shipping business. At age twelve his father took a bride and the spoiled boy was outnumbered by her five children. The stepmother's dislike for Ernest was administered when his father was away on business. She drove a wedge between her husband and his son by making up things about him causing trouble. He became rebellious out of despondency, and his school grades began to drop. Ernest's bedroom was at the top of the stairs, and he had always been referred to as the young "master of the house."
The stepmother convinced his father that he should be moved downstairs next to the laundry room, so that she could keep an eye on him he couldn't be trusted. His room was given to her son and Ernest was de-throned.
At age seventeen, he found himself completely alone as his older sister went away to school. He tried to befriend the new resident in his room, but he had been ordered to stay away from him. When his father got home from his trips, he would call him into the office and lay down the law. Ernest had tried to minimize telling him the mistreatment he received so his father wouldn't think he was a crybaby looking for attention. When his father began verbalizing his disgust with Ernest's trumped-up behavior, the boy had no place to turn. He talked to some of the guys at London Docks, where his father's business was, and heard business was booming in America. That you could get any kind of job you wanted you just had to ask. He made his plan to runaway at the young age of seventeen, and seek his fortune across the ocean. He met a cook at the docks, who worked on a freighter and offered him a job as a cooks helper. He left in the early morning light with a few belongings and began his voyage.
America turned out to be everything that he heard it was. His life took a turn for the better and he got a job on a riverboat, delivering supplies to city ports along the Ohio River. He adapted quickly to the American way of doing things.
As he blossomed with people and opportunities, he missed his sister back in London. He wrote a letter to her and sent it to her boarding school to avoid the stepmother's chance at intercepting it. They began correspondence that later became monumental as the stepmother tried to take his father's money.

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