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In June 1948, my Mother immigrated to Canada. My brother Alfred, who had already been in Canada for
10 years, arranged her immigration. In July, 1948, the re-evaluation of the German Mark took place
in West Germany. Overnight, all people were set equal. The old money currency was withdrawn and
everyone was given 60 Marks of new currency. No matter how much money you had, 1,000 Marks more
or less or no money at all, everyone received 60 West German Marks. Landowners and Factories lost
very little. For days before the change all the stores were empty, but on the day after the change
the stores were full of articles that had not been available before. In February, 1949, my sister
(Adele) and brother in-law (Franz Helzel) also immigrated to Canada. My brother Alfred had
arranged their trip. Shortly after they moved to Canada the Henschel Works closed, and I became
unemployed. In May of 1949, I got a job in my former trade at a paper factory near Frankfurt. I
worked there for 6 months, but was not able find an apartment and I also had some other problems
at work. The locals did not want any foreigners, and so I went back to Wanfried. I did not find
any other work until April, 1952, shortly before we had finally decided to immigrate to Canada.
My wife then worked in a printing shop. I worked in February and March 1952 for a few weeks for
a company that laid water lines and did road construction. I put a lot of effort into finding
work at the Co-op Association but had no success. I was told by them that if I found 200 new
members I would get a job with them. I had found 400 members and still not get a job. So we
decided it was time to immigrate to Canada.
In April, 1952, we were permitted to immigrate. My sister and brother lend us the money for the
trip to Canada. When we arrived in Canada we owed $1,200 for our trip. On April 5, 1952, we left
Wanfried, it was just Easter. In Bremen we had to go through all the formalities and controls
as well as searches again. We had gone through all of this before in October, 1951, but our
immigration was delayed till April, 1952. We sold most of our belongings before immigrating.
We said our goodbyes to our friends and then we ventured on to the big trip into the unknown.
In Bremen we were put on the ship named Beaverbrae; it was Easter Saturday as we left Bremen.
The trip took 11 days. Except for a few small incidents the trip across the ocean went well.
Through the English Channel the sea was calm, but as soon as we entered to Atlantic Ocean the
sea was very high. The children were seasick for 8 days, and I was seasick for a couple of days.
Two days before we reached Canada the ship was pushing ice and we were all a little scared. By
the time we arrived in the Gulf of St. Laurence, things had calmed down and we landed in the
city of Quebec. There we went through a customs control and everything went well. A few boxes
had been broken which we were able to fix after we went through customs. We then boarded a
train; the 900 passengers from the ship were all boarded and organized according to their
destination. We were going to
Beaverlodge,
in the northwest sector of Alberta where my sister lived. My Mother had died in November, 1951
before our arrival. The train trip took 10 days. The train went trough Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg,
Regina, Calgary, Edmonton and then to
Beaverlodge.
We were astounded and amazed by the many forests we saw during out train ride, and about
the long trip we made across Canada. We wondered what was ahead of us.
In Beaverlodge my sister and
brother-in-law picked us up at the train station, and some other people also welcomed us there.
One thing that I noticed immediately was that there was no class distinction.
The next day people brought us food to eat. A doctor brought us potatoes and some others brought
us meat.
My wife was at first somewhat disappointed with Canada, but to me it was as I had imagined it to
be; everything was relatively primitive in Canada compared to Europe. We had never been so poor
in our lives as in the beginning of our arrival to Canada. We had no money and we still had to
pay back what we owed for our fare to Canada, and at the same time had to make a new beginning
in a new country. I was not able to find a job for nearly two months. My daughter was able to
get a job working in the household of a doctor and my son went to school in
Beaverlodge. He was
placed in Grade 7 till the end of the school year, and two months later in September
started in Grade 9. He learned English quickly. My wife worked in the hospital in
Beaverlodge and I
found work at a construction site laying waterlines. We were also able to rent a small house.
When we finished laying the water line, the foreman asked me if I would like to go to
Calgary with him, this was
in September, 1952. I went with two others to
Calgary. The man who drove
with us was from Beaverlodge.
He had a car and it happened to be a Ford 1927 model. We could only drive at about forty miles
per hour and it took us over four days before we arrived in
Calgary. We stopped in Grande
Prairie, then in Edmonton and Innisfail. Whenever we came to a town we stopped at the Beer
Parlors. Close to Carstairs we popped both front tires. Luckily a repair shop was near where
we could buy two new tires. We finally arrived in
Calgary during the evening,
and the next day we started work in Strathmore where we laid some more waterlines. There I
met a German fellow and we became close friends. He worked for the same company. I associated
myself with him because my English was not the best, and his English was good. After we
finished in Strathmore we were taken to
Carstairs, where we also laid
more water lines.
Afterwards this friend of mine was laid off. I gave him our address in
Beaverlodge. He went
there and got a job with a farmer. I then was transferred from
Carstairs to
Penhold in Alberta,
where we laid more water lines.
Penhold was then a fairly new
town close to the airport. By then my daughter worked in
Red Deer, in the household for
the doctor who had moved from
Beaverlodge. One week before
Christmas 1952, we finished in Penhold
and I drove back to Beaverlodge,
where we celebrated our first Christmas in Canada. After Christmas I worked for my brother Alfred
in a lumber camp in the bush near Tomslake, British Columbia. I worked there as a cook for three
months. It was March when we were finished there. My brother however went bankrupt with the bush
camp, and I had worked there for three months for nothing. He was not able to pay me. I then went
back to Beaverlodge and worked
there for a man for a few weeks who picked me up from our house every day. We cleaned the
pipeline at a gas
station. After Easter in 1953, I went to Edmonton with my friend whom I had met laying water lines
in Strathmore. We worked in Edmonton for two months as carpenters. One day we got separated and
worked on different construction sites. I had not written down the address where we were living.
I could not speak much English and it took me quite a few hours before I finally found the spot
where our room was at; my friend was already there and anxiously waiting for me.
My brother Alfred got me a job in Dawson Creek, B.C. at a sawmill. There I worked until the spring
of 1954. We rented a house in Dawson Creek and we moved there from
Beaverlodge. I liked it very much
in Dawson Creek. There were many German people there, but it was a mistake to go there because I
did not learn any English. I took a few correspondence courses in upholstery and I got a diploma
for it. We finally were able to pay off the rest of our trip. My wife worked as a housemaid
cleaning homes and so we finally got a little ahead. My son went to high school in Dawson Creek.
In March 1954 I became unemployed again, but was able to collect some unemployment insurance.
In April, 1954, my daughter and her fiancé Max Gesell came to
Dawson Creek and visited us.
They moved us to Red Deer, and
they had already rented a suite for us there. When we arrived in
Red Deer, the sign on the side of
the road before the city read "population 10,000". My daughter and her fiancé had some friends
in Red Deer. They all helped us
for a while. I was unemployed there and initially we did not even like it in
Red Deer, even though the other
people in the apartment house were we stayed were very nice. I found work after two months as
a carpenter's helper and was able to meet some people. Then after another two months I found
work at the Gas Company, but was laid off shortly before Christmas. In the spring of 1955 I
got a job at as a medical aid in the Provincial Training School in Red Deer, a school for
mentally handicapped children. There I was required to go to lectures and I was not able to
understand a word for the first few weeks. My daughter also worked there until she got married.
My son Wernfried then came from
Dawson Creek to
Red Deer. He attended
Grade 12 in Red Deer in
1955. I attended English courses at night and was able to make headway that way; it helped
me a lot. My wage at the Provincial Training School was very low. I got $150.00 a month plus
$25.00 bonus for working seven days in a row, and then one day off. My son also worked there
during the summer school holidays. After two years we were able to get 1˝ days off in the week
and the wage increased to $200.00 per month. In 1957, we bought a house in
Red Deer, the address was
4739 - 50 St. After working for six years at the Provincial Training School (PTS) I transferred
to the Deer Home (a home for mentally handicapped adults), where I stayed until I was 65 years
of age. In April of 1969, I retired and received an old age pension. My son went to university
for 4 years; he got his degree in Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering in May, 1961.
We were very proud of him. He got married in Winnipeg in 1964. My brother Max visited us at
that time from Czechoslovakia. He also came to the wedding. We had bought a car in 1962, so we
drove to Winnipeg. We saw a good part of this big beautiful country. My brother liked the trip
very much. We went to the Rocky Mountains and afterwards visited my sister in
Beaverlodge where he stayed
until his departure. In 1966, my daughter in-law died in Winnipeg and we went there for
her funeral. In the summer 1967, my wife and I took a trip to Jasper, Golden, Revelstoke,
Kamloops, Hope, Vancouver, Victoria and back via Penticton, Nelson, and Fairmont Hot Springs,
Banff and
Calgary and so we were able
to see a part of this huge country.
In the summer of 1970 my wife and I went for 4˝ months to Europe. We saw our house in
Czechoslovakia, which was for us, an unforgettable experience. We flew to Europe on
the evening of June 16, 1970 and we were in continuous daylight. We went over Greenland,
Ireland, England and then to Amsterdam, Holland and arrived there at 12:00 noon our time.
The weather was beautiful. At 1:30pm we flew to Frankfurt with another airline, which took
one hour. We stayed there overnight. We had some luggage put into storage, and then the
next day we went by bus to Wiesbaden, there we stayed three nights in a hotel. We toured
part of Wiesbaden and then I went to the Dresdener Bank in Wiesbaden. I had money there
in an account from my German Old Age pension, which I used for our trip. Early on Saturday,
June 20, we took the train to Frankfurt, and from there a taxi to the airport and flew to
Prague with Lufthansa Airline. We had to go through customs in Prague where we were required
to exchange some money. My brother Max and his friend picked us up at the airport. We went via
Thersienstadt to Stein Schoenau, and we arrived there in the afternoon. We stayed in Stein
Schoenau for 20 days and visited many familiar places which we knew of. We were, however, very
disappointed about the condition in which the cities and towns were in. We went in Reichenberg
and visited some old friends, and also our hometown Füllerdörfel in Nieder Preschkau. A lot had
changed. The houses and everything were very run down. Coming back after 30 years the road to
our home appeared totally different to us from we had remembered it to be. We went in Tetschen
Bodenbach where everything also seemed strange. One day we went with relatives to the Heida
Bergstein on the Hermits Rock and then drove afterwards to Wansdorf. Then we drove via Kreibiz
and Hazel to my brother's house. It was a nice drive and brought back many memories of my youth.
On July 10, we left by train to Bodenbach and said goodbye to my brother and sister in-law,
and we had said "adieu" to our old home. We were rather glad to leave this country which was
once so beautiful. It was once our home and a beautiful place on this earth. We wanted to
remember it the way it had been before in our youth. The condition it in now in was almost
unbearable for us to see. We saw then what the people of Czechoslovakia did to what we once
called our home.
We had no problems at the boarder crossing into East Germany. In Dresden, we exchanged some
money and then went on to Zwickau and after to Wertlau. There, we visited a friend. On the
trip we noticed that the houses and gardens in East Germany were much neater and greener
than in Czechoslovakia. In East Germany nobody bothered us, and the people were very friendly.
In Wertlau we arrived one day early and we stayed overnight in a hotel, but the hotel left a
lot to be desired. The following day we looked for our friend in Wertlau and stayed a few days
with him. We were required to register at the district office and had to stay within a 30 km
area. We then went to Neubukov in the district of Wismar, where my cousin lived. We also stayed
a week with her and were taken in with a welcome. We went with her to the East Sea. We were
again required to register and inform the district office of our arrival and departure; where
I was starting to get disgusted about all this bureaucracy. My cousin from Stralsund also came
there and visited with us for a day. We were very happy to see him.
After six days we continued on and went to Bad Doberan and Herrnburg. There we were required
to go through the border controls again to West Germany, which went well. From there we went
on to Hamburg, and then on the Europa Express train to Frankfurt. We stayed four days in a Hotel
in Frankfurt, which was very clean compared to the hotels in the east block. After this we went
to Massenheim and visited Josef Lehnert, a brother of my wife. The next day we went to Hamm to
visit another brother Adolf Lehnert but he was not at home, however the nephew Erwin welcomed
us. He drove to Wuppertal us the next day where we met our sister in-law Steffi. We then bought
a two month ticket for the Europa Express train. We were then able to travel all over Western
Europe, including the boats on the Rhine River and on the lakes. In Wuppertal we stayed for two
days, then a relative of my wife brought us back to the train station, and we went back to
Masssenheim. The next day we traveled to Bebera Hersfeld where we met a cousin and some
friends from Füllerdörfel and Nieder Preschkau. Everyone welcomed us and all were happy to see
each other once again. Later we went to Rosenberg-Sulzbach where Ernl, a niece of my wife lived.
We had a very nice time there, and we stayed with her for a week. Then we went on to Munich and
visited some other relatives. With them we went to Zillertal in Austria, where we met more
relatives who were there on their vacation. After we returned they showed us Munich and the
Hofbrauhaus and the Olympic Place. A week later we went to Innsbruck were in the Alps we
went on a cogwheel train, and later saw the Europa Bridge. In Innsbruck we toured several
churches and museums from Andreas Hofer. From Innsbruck we went on to Ramsbach where we
visited some friends of my brother Max.
We then went to Venice in Italy with our Europa Pass. We had some nice days there but the
heat was unbearable. In Tyrol it was the opposite it was very cool and saw a lot. From
Venice we went with a boat to the Adriatic Sea, and in Venice we also decided to go on a
Gondola boat through the canals, and did not regret taking. From Venice we went to Pisa.
Initially we wanted to go to Rome but the heat was too much for us. We did not like Pisa
very much. We saw the leaning tower and then continued on to Genova and Monaco. Monte Carlo
was very beautiful. We saw the harbour by night and the palace as well as the museums and
aquariums. We also went into the Casinos where my wife liked watching the people gamble.
We were one week in Monaco. From there we went to Milano where we stayed a night, and then
continued onto Bern and Zurich, a very scenic trip. In Zurich we stayed for a few days and
went on a boat ride on Lake Zurich. Then on to Schaffhausen where we saw the Rhine Falls.
In Konstanz on the Boden Lake we took another boat trip. We then went to Ulm in West Germany
where we stayed for several days. We climbed the stairs to the top of the Dome of Ulm and
looked also at many museums. From there we went through the Schwabisch Alm to Freiburg Black
Forest. The trip to Schwaben on the Donau River was beautiful. We went with the cable car to
the top of the Feldberg, the highest mountain in the Black Forest. Also in Freiburg we saw
many attractions. It was a nice relaxing spot and the people were very friendly. We then went
back to Wiesbaden and the next day we went with a boat on the Rhine River to Königswinter
where we stayed over night, and then went on the next day to Frankfurt. There we took a Hotel
room for a week and we arranged our return flight. We had to wait for two weeks before we
could get a flight back to North America. We got our suitcases from my wife's brother in
Massenheim. They were able to store it their place while we were gone on our trip. The
women where we rented our room drove us to Massenheim and picked us up again. We also
visited two of my wife's, Edith and Margrit and also my wife's sister Emma. We stayed
with them for a week until our departure. During that time we were able to see more of Frankfurt.
We flew back with Trans World Airlines 755. We had a long wait in London. Everywhere in the
airports we were checked for weapons and dynamite. From London we went to Philadelphia, USA,
where we went through US customs. From there we went on to Pittsburgh. Our son Frank, his
wife Gerry and Joanne picked us up at the airport. We stayed with them for one week. Frank
showed us many things around Pittsburgh and we went also to the Indian Caverns, which was
very interesting. In October we continued on to Cleveland where we transferred and flew to
Toronto where we had another long wait. We were glad to be back in Canada again. That evening
we arrived in Calgary at 9:00 p.m.
and it was snowing a lot. The next day, Alex, Max's brother and Erika drove us back home to
Red Deer. It was nice to go
away on the trip but it was even much nicer to return home.
LIFES DESTINATION
Life brings many nice hours
But also the harm is not spared,
which encounters you
on all your paths and in every hour.
So don't forget the hours that have passed
and keep the nice times in your mind.
Then the destination in life will become easier.
Do without that which you do not have.
Then you will have luck with the bitterest moments
And after difficult sorrowed hours
life's hard burdens will become easier.
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