Fellow Travelers – A Family Story

Day 144 – Cruising the South China Sea – Find Insignia on CruiseMapper

Ann Joseph is known as the Columbus of her family because she was the first member to leave India for America. She arrived in Kansas City, Kansas, from the Kerala region of India on July 30, 1973, alone. She left behind Sebastian, her husband of one year, her parents, siblings and everything and everyone she had ever known. 

Fifty years later, Ann and Sebastian along with Sebastian’s niece Leela Abraham and her husband Korah are sailing around the world with us on Insignia. We got to know the family coincidentally on shared excursions where we found Leela’s radiant smile irresistible and the family’s obvious comradery intriguing.

How does a family travel for so long in such a confined space and still be smiling so broadly? We wanted to know.

Families Afloat

The Joseph-Abrahams are not the only family afloat on Insignia. There was a grandmother who rotated teenaged grandchildren onto the ship for different segments early in the world cruise, a divorced father still rotating his adult daughters, a son taking infinitely patient care of his elderly father with severe disabilities, mothers and daughters, adult siblings and other configurations, including families with children or teens.

We met Columbus and her extended family while sharing excursions with them – a train trip to the end of the world in Ushuia, a day cruise on the Gambia River. We shared laughs and scenery. Eventually, we shared dinner to hear their story.

We learned that Ann, short for Annamma, was the second-oldest of nine siblings and a nurse, which made it easy for her to secure a visa to emigrate to the United States. She went to Kansas City after being hired for a nursing post from distant India but moved six months later to New York City, where there were better jobs. As she established herself, she brought one sibling after another to join her. All of them had good jobs in India but felt the opportunities were greater in America and so to America they all came. 

Sebastian did not arrive until 1975. He had been in wireless communications in India. In NYC, it took him a month to get a job, and he settled for being a messenger on Wall Street. When winter came, some of his regular customers at JP Morgan felt sorry for him and found him a job with the firm as a clerk. Eventually, Morgan sent him for training in computer systems, and he became a systems administrator. He worked for the investment house for the next 22 years.

Leela, short for Leelamma, had met Ann at nursing school because of family connections than ran through her uncle Sebastian. When Ann and Sebastian married, the women were family as well as friends. After Leela met Korah in the New Delhi hospital where she went to work following graduation and they married, the foursome we see every day on Insignia was complete.

It was probably inevitable that Leela and Korah eventually emigrated to the States as well. Replicating Ann’s model, Leela came first as a nurse, and Korah followed six months later by getting a transfer from Thomas Cook, his employer. Although the Josephs remained in NYC and the Abrahams had settled in Philadelphia, the families have managed to spend most weekends together ever since.

2,000-Year-Old Bonds

In our profiles of fellow travelers, we will be leaving out last names for the sake of privacy, but that would leave out a compelling piece of this family’s history so they are allowing us to share. Ann and Sebastian’s surname is Joseph. Leela and Korah’s is Abraham. Being the tactful person she is, Doris’s response to this information was, “Those don’t sound like Indian names.”

It turns out the family are St. Thomas Christians, descendants of converts evangelized by the apostle St. Thomas (yes, “Doubting Thomas”), who arrived in in Kerala in AD 52 to spread the gospel. The common bonds the Abrahams and Josephs share are two millennia old.

By the end of the latest millennium, the Josephs and Abrahams were all ready for something new. In 2001, they founded RNPlus, a healthcare personnel company to supply contract nurses to hospitals and other healthcare providers. They bought a 40-foot bus, plastered it with marketing signs and toured together, recruiting from their mobile office. More than 20 years later, Ann is retired, but Sebastian, Leela and Korah still have hands-on roles in the family firm. Leela and Korah’s youngest son is at the helm on land while the elders are on the water.

It was Korah who saw an advertisement for the world cruise on Insignia. He immediately called Sebastian and asked what the man he calls his “leader, supporter and backer” thought. In five minutes, Sebastian was back to him with, “Let’s do it. The families had cruised together happily before. What could be even better than six months on the high seas?

Leela and Ann immediately declared, “We’re not going!”

But that was then and this is now. After the men promised to take them to the nearest airport and send them home if they ever wanted an off-ramp, they agreed. That hasn’t happened. Instead, the four are already planning their next adventure in family travel on the high seas.

Another Question Answered

Elizabeth asked, “In following along your trip, it seems it might be an interesting way to travel with young children. The predictability of port and sea days and ability to experience multiple locations without changing rooms seem like something that would work well for a toddler!”

Our granddaughter Abby turned 5 on a cruise with another grandparent and, from all accounts, it was a fabulous experience for one and all. We also personally know a number of families who have cruised happily with kids from preschool age through their teens. A cruise ship offers a high novelty factor and activities for the kids in a relaxing environment for the grownups. Win-win!

I’m sure families do it, but I personally would pause over cruising with an infant or toddler unless the cruise line offered an in-room childcare option or could afford a suite with a separate bedroom for the youngster so I had an adjacent place to go while they napped and went to bed at night. By the age of somewhere between 3 and 5 though? Depending on the child, I think it could be all systems go.

Where’s Snowy?

Besides hiding out in the Manila Chinese Cemetery in the Philippines?

Coming Soon!

5 Months Down, 1 to Go (!!!)