Before Earnest was born, Tierkel's father and his family arrived at Ellis Island in the United States on August 1, 1893, on the German ship Meier after a long immigration from the small village of Moliv, in Ukraine. Tierkel's grandfather, Fischel Tierkel, decided that the continued violence against the Jews in Ukraine was not sustainable for raising his family. The family set off for a better life with Fischel, his wife Rachel, son David, and daughters Lura, Emma, and Ethel. They tried living in Heidelberg, Germany for a few years, where David, the eldest child, enrolled in the University, but found that Jews were not met with hospitality in Germany either. The family then set off for The United States. After arriving at Ellis Island on a hot August day in 1893, the Tierkel family eventually settled in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where a large Eastern-European Jewish population was thriving.
