Toronto Turmoil

I asked Mor (Mom) if the ship stopped in New York before heading on to Halifax but she said she couldn’t remember them stopping there.  She seemed to recall that Far (Dad) had gone above deck “and there was some talk about New York but I wasn’t interested”.  My mother was more interested in setting foot on dry land and having the rolling under her feet stop.  She had never wanted to immigrate so she was reluctant to get enthusiastic about anything “over there”.

            We landed at Pier 21 which is the Canadian equivalent of Ellis Island.  There were 419 passengers on M.S. Stockholm who disembarked on July 23, 1957.  After the rigamarole of having the passports stamped my parents had to find the train that would take us from Halifax onwards to Toronto, via Montreal.  I have a very dim recollection of wooden benches on the train (not vinyl as I have read on the internet) and a mean, cranky old man who scolded me for bouncing a ball in the aisle.  Many years later (when I was about 14) I asked my father if that was a correct recollection and he confirmed that it was a true memory.  I also remember when we arrived in Toronto we lived in a hotel for about a week and I still have the memory of the room swimming in green wallpaper, curtains and bed linens.  Again, Dad confirmed it was a true memory.

            On arriving at Canada Packers where my father was supposed to have this fabulous job he received his first real shock when they advised knew nothing about him!  Imagine the turmoil he went through.  However, seeing his credentials they did hire him but not with the fantastic job of superintendent that he had been promised.  Instead he was back to being a labourer on the production line.  My mother had a further horror awaiting her as they searched for an apartment.  Remember she had just left a beautiful, new, modern apartment.  There was no immigration office to give assistance.  Instead they drove around in a taxi and the driver would stop at apartments with rent signs posted.  My parents viewed dump after dump all with peeling wallpaper, floors with the vinyl coming off in strips, sinks with pipes showing (no cupboards) and a washroom that made my mother turn away and say `we cannot live here`.  My parents didn’t realize they were in downtown Toronto so they believed all of Canada looked filthy and run down.  At last the taxi driver found a house that had a “room to let” sign posted in front.  It was a basement apartment of a house and it was decent.  The owners were Italian and the house was on Bathurst Street.

            Then they went shopping for furniture and found some really beautiful looking pieces.  But like the shiny red apple, they looked lovely but after sitting on them a day or two the legs fell off the divans and the fabric started to wear out within months. 

Is it any wonder that my mother longed to go home?