WELLAND CANAL
Károly Kádi (also known as Charles Kady) was born in 1890 in Ugod, Hungary, then part of Austria-Hungary.
His personal journeys began in 1907 when at the age of 17 he sailed for America aboard the S.S. Californie. He married Marcella (Mary) Gödri and they had two children born in Bridgeport, Conn.: Irma (born 1917) and Elsa (born ca. 1920).
In order to return to Hungary after the First World War, Kádi applied for a transit passport from The Royal Legation of Sweden in Washington, D.C. At that time the legation was in charge of AustroHungarian affairs in the United States and granted the Kady family a six-month travel passport. This was both a brave and a foolish decision because Hungary was devastated after the First World War and did not have a government. After arriving in 1921 (through France, Switzerland and Austria), it is believed that they lived for the next few years in the Lake Balaton region of Hungary.
Hungary spent 4½ months under the Bolshevik regime of Béla Kun, and then during a right-wing regency under Admiral Miklós Horthy it fought the Romanian army. It was no place to raise a family which by then had grown to include a son, József ( born 1923, Hungary).
At some point Károly told Marcella that he believed there would be another war. With that in mind they emigrated again, Károly arriving in Halifax, N.S., in December 1925, followed by Marcella and the children in January 1927.
Kádi intended to take up farming and was destined for Wakaw, Sask., to see a friend, István Maki (in March 1926, Kádi was followed to Wakaw by his good friend from Ugod, Steve Bornemisza). Family lore also states that Elsa, the Kádis’ youngest daughter, had died of influenza during one of the family’s trans-Atlantic crossings. Unfortunately, no record can be located for her death nor for her burial.
At age 35, Kádi spoke seven languages and he had already crossed the Atlantic three times. Sometime after their farming experience in the west, the Kádi family settled in Welland, and Károly found employment on the Welland Ship Canal as a steel worker.
At 11:30 a.m. on Nov. 14, 1928, Kádi and friend Steve Bornemisza, and two other men, were on top of a shipment of timber on a railway flatcar. The car was on the floor of Lock 8 and the work crew was preparing to offload the shipment. The foreman, J.A. Cameron, completed his checks that everything was OK, but he did that before there were any men standing atop the load. Wires binding the stakes which held the timbers had already been cut. The action of the workmen clambering onto the load must have shifted the timbers, causing a weaker ‘stay’ to break.
Kádi was in the most vulnerable position in the middle of the pile. When the timbers shifted, Kádi was carried about 2.4 metres to the concrete floor of the lock. Bornemisza was seriously injured and was unable to go to the aid of his friend. He said that Kádi was buried from his head to his waist in timbers, each weighing about 360 kilograms.
Kádi was removed with great difficulty, but he was still alive when extracted from the mess. However, he died of a fractured skull and other severe injuries before the arrival of Dr. Grant N. Black. He was the 109th victim of the 137 canalbuilding fatalities.
A funeral service took place on Friday, Nov. 16, with these touching words from the eulogy (translated from Hungarian): I will no longer be a bread winner for you [Marcella], But in the high heavens I will pray for you … [and to Irma and József ] may God stretch his arms to hold your hands.
Irma, the eldest daughter of Károly Kádi/Charles Kady, also ensured that his memory would live on in the generations of her family. She named her son Charles and her daughter Carol, and the next generations have children named Annie, and then Kady.
His grandchildren — Charles, Carol, Loralee and Mark — are, respectively, a dentist, an architect/fine artist, a musician and a forester, and today they live in the United States and Canada.
“Our grandfather’s short life was one of learning, adventure, foolish and brazen decisions, knowledge of war and its consequences, and yet a desire to be part of a perilous effort to build a great water connection to flow the commerce and wealth to his adoptive country.” — The authors are grandchildren of Károly Kádi.
— This article is part of a series remembering the men whose lives were lost in construction of the Welland Ship Canal. The Welland Canal Fallen Workers Memorial Task Force will unveil a memorial to the workers this fall. To learn more or to make a donation visit www.stcatharines.ca/donate.