An engaging reflection on a particularly eventful life
“‘Where are you from?’ For most people the answer is fairly straightforward: Corner Brook, France, England, St. John’s, etc. But for me it’s always been a difficult question.”
So Frank Gronich wrote a book in answer.
His biography chronicles more than his geographical journey — though that was adventurous and considerable. He also moved through a world war, repression, dislocation, and times of unease and fright and promise.
“In my early years, I sometimes thought the sun would never rise.”
He was born in 1932 in Sudetenland, now in the Czech Republic, whose borders ebbed and waned with the territorial exchanges after the First World War, and then was invaded and annexed by Nazi Germany. Troubles, of course, ensued. “Young boys my age were required to join the Hitler Youth, wear uniforms, practice marching and drills, and play war games.”
In 1945, upon Germany’s defeat, the Russian army marched in.
“They took some of our animals for food, but I was really heartbroken when I had to watch helplessly as soldiers took our horses” — including an orphaned colt he’d raised himself,
who would follow him into his house because it thought he was his mother.
The post-wwii Potsdam Conference meant his family lost their farm, although at first they ended up in an apartment in their former home and continued with their labour there.
But soon they were expelled, sent walking with hundreds of others, and only allowed to take one suitcase.
“My mother covered some gold coins with material and sewed them onto her dress as buttons.” Their destination was a mystery. Deportation to a Siberian uranium mine, or worse, was a dreaded fate. But they ended in a West German refugee camp.
Resettled, Gronich studied
agriculture and his good marks earned him a trip to America, one year of Grade 12 study, boarding with a family, the Smeltzers, in South Bend, Indiana.
He learned English reciting nursery rhymes to their two little girls.
“One or the other would interrupt me if I mispronounced a word … They were relentless.”
He returned to Europe in 1952 but soon after immigrated to Canada.
At Pier 21 in Halifax, officials announced the name of a province and immigrants raised their hands if they wanted to go there. Gronich didn’t know much about the country, “I had a map … And I didn’t really want to go too far west. I would
let fate decide.”
He was one of three left when the last name was given — Newfoundland.
At this first invitation, Gronich actually decided not to go. He had the right of one refusal, and didn’t want to travel to an isolated island. He ended up with a farming family, the Elliots, in Annapolis Valley, N.S. Then came an opportunity with a wholesale food distributor in Halifax. A few other jobs followed, including an unsuccessful stint as an insurance salesman. And then he ended up in Newfoundland after all, working accounts for GMAC, based out of Corner Brook.
“For the first three months, I lived at the Glynmill Inn. GMAC paid for everything except the bar bill.”
He met other young men, and young couples, and, on a blind date, Eileen O’rourke.
He transferred to Canada Packers; he and Eileen got involved with the Corner Brook Playmakers Company; they opened, of all things, a flower shop.
And all this before the legal career most associate Gronich with. That he didn’t even start until he was 45, applying to several schools and accepted by, among others, Dalhousie, the oldest student in his class. Eventually he became senior Crown attorney. And yes he does (discretely) dish on some of his major cases and legal and political gossip.
His memory and details and description, along with his talent for simply finding himself in memorable situations — including with elephants in a travelling circus (!) — make for good reading. As does his self-deprecating humour, as illustrated with this phone call exchange: “How may I help you?
“A man loudly said, ‘This is Joseph R. Smallwood, and I want you to deliver a bouquet a beautiful bouquet of flowers …’
“Laughing, I cut him off, saying, ‘How ya doin, Joey? Glad ya called. I’m Santa Claus. So what can I bring ya for Christmas?’”
Of course it was the Premier, not amused.
Gronich did live in interesting times, which, especially in the circumstances of his youth, was a curse more than a blessing. He was also an interesting, and interested, man. So his life story is an informative and engaging reflection of this.