For over half a century this 15 page chronicle written by my great grandfather, telling the story of his adventures, failures and successes of his new life as an immigrant in the city of Buenos Aires in the year 1889 remained forgotten in a drawer.
With the arrival of the Internet and its infinite possibilities for global communication, I believe it is opportune to publish this document as one more of the thousands that are already known or have been forgotten for ever about new beginnings in the Argentine Republic.
These stories, with no literary ambition, are meant to preserve personal experiences and political and social landscapes of that time, in a country that more than 100 years later, suffers the reverse effect; an migratory vacuum similar to that of Europe towards the end of the nineteenth century.
Europe of that time lived in relative peace, without wars. This allowed the awakening of the working classes, preparing the stage for the events that took place in Russia spanning from 1906 to 1913.
Books could be written about the many reasons that led people to emigrate. However it can be said with certainty that without the spirit of adventure that filled these new inhabitants of our land, this immigration would not have taken place.
Today, the vast majority of people that decide to leave Argentina belong to the middle class (or or what it was until a few years ago), favoured by European passports inherited from the generation of immigrants that settled in our country for over a century.
Perhaps with sufficient political wisdom, future Argentines will learn how to retain this invaluable human capital and once again tempt men and women from around the world to immigrate to our sparsely populated country to give it once more the characteristic brightness, warmth, strength, and hospitality that were so valued and recognized world wide.
It should be pointed out that the original manuscript is in French. I have strived to preserve the familial and spontaneous tone of my great grandfather, omitting some paragraphs related to accounting that were either too confusing or too detailed.
The photographs that document the company founded by Gabriel Tarris have no dates, but it is easy to deduce that they were printed towards the end of the 1920s or shortly after 1930.
– Enrique Pablo Tarris, Detmold, Germany, july 10, 2015
All documents have been translated to English by Luis Pugliese (The husband of Catherine Tarris, daughter of Jorge Tarris and Joyce Cullenand great and granddaughter of Gabriel Tarris) – November 16, 2017