An immigrant story and birthday wish
Finding the perfect place with hopes for a better life
LIKE ONE OUT OF FIVE people in Canada, I was born in a foreign country.
And like every other Canadian immigrant looking for a fresh start, my family and I have a tale to tell about what brought us to this safe, free and prosperous land.
I’ve told some of this before, but what better time to revisit it than Canada’s 150th birthday, when, in an increasingly unstable world, it’s almost impossible not to count our blessings.
We came from England in the mid-1950s. It was there that Dad had been demobilized from the free Polish army after the Second World War. He had little choice in making England his home. Like many of his countrymen, it was either that or returning to a homeland occupied by the Soviet Russians.
Before long, he had wooed and wed an English girl and they settled down to raise a family in the steeltown of Sheffield. But postwar Britain was still a bleak place with little opportunity for a castaway struggling with the language.
In the hope of a better life, my parents considered moving to Australia, even Rhodesia. Then one fateful day, my Mom saw a film at the library promoting Hamilton. The steel mills felt comfortably familiar. The green views from the Mountain looked spectacular. They decided they’d found the perfect place, far from the flickering fears of another European war.
My six-year-old brother Steve and I boarded the ocean liner wearing coonskin caps and fringed frontier jackets, convinced we’d be battling Indians like our hero, Davy Crockett. I had my fourth birthday during the Atlantic crossing.
WHEN WE LANDED in Montreal, we had $250 and everything we owned in a couple of flimsy suitcases. I still have one of those suitcases, a slightly mildewed but moving reminder of another time and the newcomer courage of my parents.
We pulled into Hamilton by train at what’s now LIUNA Station. It was a fiercely hot and humid day and we sweltered in winter woollens. We rented a small furnished apartment on East Avenue, bought pots and pans, food and bedding. By bedtime, my parents had $26 in their pockets and swarms of butterflies in their stomachs.
There were no immigrant services to lend a helping hand. But Hamilton, like Canada, opens up to hard work. Dad soon got a job at a plant on Sherman Avenue. The money wasn’t great, but it was a start. We later moved to a flat on Orchard Hill in the southwest.
There were lean times. We were poor. And just as today’s immigrants may occasionally encounter prejudice, so did we. Because of Dad’s Polish accent, he was sometimes called a DP. It means displaced person but it was intended to belittle foreigners as dumb outsiders.
Dad kept plugging away. Mom got a job at Westinghouse. We settled in, made friends, knew kindness, looked to the future. I remember how proud we were to get our citizenship papers. When we bought our first home on Herkimer Street, it felt as if we were flourishing.
We’d lived here for a little over a decade by the time Canada was celebrating the 100th anniversary of Confederation in 1967. Steve and I had another brother and sister and we were adjusting to middle class comfort in St. Catharines where Dad had been transferred as the branch manager of a life insurance firm.
I still remember some of the highlights of that Centennial year. The flame on Parliament Hill. Expo 67. Bobby Gimby’s “Ca-na-da.” The Canadian Armed Forces Tattoo, which Dad took me to see at Ivor Wynne Stadium.
The 50 years between then and now have gone far too fast. Dad has passed away. And I sure know I won’t be around for Canada’s 200th birthday party. But it’s comforting to know my family has now sunk deep roots in this great land.
That brings me to my 150th birthday wish: I hope and pray this country of ours will always be as safe, free and prosperous as it is now, and as it was those many years ago when my family, flimsy suitcases in hand, first arrived on its fortunate shores.