2 - A Legal Immigrant- Our Arrival and First Home

When my mother and I arrived in Quebec City, my father was waiting for us at dockside to take us to Toronto where he had rented a flat on Crawford St. We rented the entire second floor from a Ukrainian Family who were also immigrants to Canada. They had 2 children. Johnny and Olga. They also had several cousins who lived just down the street. I remember thinking how odd it was that I couldn't understand a word they said. It didn't take long before I was conversing quite well in Ukrainian. My parents would have preferred that I learned English at the time but there were mostly other foreigners living in that part of town. It was at that time in my life that a saw my first tricycle. It was a large one that a 5 or 6 year old could ride. Unfortunately, I was already 8 at the time and instantly realised that it had passed me by. My next great discovery was a Black and White Television in a store window just down the street. Wow! The kids would watch that as often as we could. TV went off the air at 6:00pm in those days except on the weekends when it was on a little longer in the evening.

By the time the summer was over and school started I spoke English as well as a mish-mash of other languages. School didn't seem to be a problem as most foreigner, including myself took great pride in learning the language and assimilating into Canadian Society.

After a year we moved to a regular daylight basement appartment in a real fancy part of Toronto. There was good access to street cars and we a a huge public park across the street from us. I recall that my parents entertained a lot in those days so there were always other German couples around who also had young children. My grandparents on Dad's side stayed with us for a time and I remember that my Oma would make me fried potatoes and eggs after school. Oh, such culinary bliss! In time my Oma and Opa would move on to Australia to join several of my uncles and aunts where they had immigrated to. We also chose to move at that time.

next post.. into the frontier