At ancestry.com when I search under “Immigration & Travel” with my name, year 1944, and San Juan, Puerto Rico, the passenger list for PanAm flight number 25655 shows that I arrived on 8 December 1944 in San Juan with my father, mother and baby sister.

At this time, it was unusual for a 6 year old boy from Pennsylvania to be traveling out of the country during wartime. My father was involved in the industrial growth caused by WWII. In 1944 he was sent to help build, staff, and put into operation the first glass factory in Puerto Rico.

Late in November we drove from Clarion, Pennsylvania, to Mobile, Alabama, where we left our car to be shipped to Puerto Rico. Gasoline was rationed for everyone during the war, so people in the southern states would wave to us since they hadn’t seen a Pennsylvania license plate in several years.

We took a Greyhound bus from Mobile to Miami, Florida, where we rode a propeller airplane – with stops in Havana, Cuba: Santiago, Cuba: Port-au-Prince, Haiti: Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: – to finally arrive in San Juan.
Another search in Ancestry shows that we returned on PanAm flight Number 88885 to Miami, Florida on 10 March 1946.

Thanks to the information I found on ancestry.com, I have two new interesting documents I can include in my family history. –Fred Keefer