New Country, New Life

We slept well on our first night in Montreal. After eating an excellent dinner that Sara prepared, our stomachs were full. Fatigue helped us to fall asleep almost instantly. Eleanor proved herself to be a really good child. She always slept through the whole night and usually woke up with a smile. The first night she had to sleep on the floor because we did not have a crib for her yet. Sara and Nathan had prepared sheets, pillows and blankets for us, since the two crates we shipped from Belgium were in a Custom's warehouse pending clearance.

The next day, our work was cut out for us. First, we bought a crib. Then I presented myself to Customs. Since I was a landed immigrant, our household items were cleared without any problems. With Nathan's help, our belongings were delivered immediately. Thanks to Helen's imaginative arrangement, our little place looked quite livable. Initially, we thought of this as a temporary arrangement, but soon realized how difficult it was to rent apartments.

During the war, practically no new buildings were constructed. All work was geared toward producing goods and materials for the war effort. Young men and women were shipped overseas, reducing the demand for new accommodations. Once the war was over, the fighting men returned and immigration opened up, demand for apartments outstripped their availability.

New buildings started to go up at a very slow pace. To encourage faster growth, the government lifted the rent controls on any new buildings, making them inaccessible to poor immigrants like us, and even to many old timers. If you were lucky enough to find an old apartment under rent control, landlords demanded key money in some cases, more than what many could afford.

On our first morning in Canada, we added up our assets and found we had a total of $1,060 left at our disposal. We could hardly afford to pay key money even if we found a suitable place. But it soon became clear to us that we could not stay in this place. It turned out that the owner of the apartment had a retarded child. The place could just never be kept clean and the odor was something we could not bear. It was not Nathan's fault at all. The people subletting to us told him there were no children. To Nathan, it seemed to be a really good place for us. The poor man was sincerely sorry, but there was nothing we could do but look for another place.

It took us about two weeks to find a place not far from where we had been. It was on Clark Street, in one of the characteristic homes from that district. All the buildings were three stories high, attached to each other, and had wooden stairs on the outside. Except for different colored paint, they were carbon copies of each other.

Our new landlords, Mr. and Mrs. Spivak, had purchased this property just a few months before for the then astronomical amount of $6,000, with probably $2,000 down. To help with the mortgage, they rented the downstair and third floor to two families. On their own floor was a double parlor, which included kitchen privileges. Our monthly rent was $55, everything included. That was twice the rent of the downstair or third floor apartments, which were occupied by old tenants under rent control.

The double parlor was clean and livable in no time, but the kitchen was something difficult for us to get used to. We had our own dishes. We even had our own implements in which to wash the dishes because we did not trust the cleanliness of the sink.

Cooking was solved easily enough. Mrs. Spivak did not get up until late in the morning, which left Helen time enough to cook our meals. A larger problem involved the three Spivak children. They caused us some trouble, running in and out of our double parlor, until I became the "bad guy" and put a stop to that. The Spivaks were decent people, primitive and uneducated to be sure, but goodhearted, coming from Poland a long time ago. They did not have an easy time in Canada and this house made them feel secure and proud of their achievements. Mr. Spivak was an operator in a dress factory. He made a good salary for those days - when he was in fact working. When he went to shul on Saturdays, he not only had to pray for himself and his family, but also had to throw in a few prayers for his boss to have enough work for him.

After living there a few months, we had many conversations in the evenings, and I even started to like the man. The first week after moving in, he took the trouble to introduce me to an apparatus called the "telephone". He told me I could use it to talk to anybody who had the same contraption anywhere in the city and maybe even further. He also showed me a Phillips radio, one of those real old-timers, which my Zeide in Volove threw out years ago. We were talking once about money. He told me that his boss made $1,000 that month, a sum he could hardly believe anyone could make. He asked me if I thought it could be true. When I told him that some merchants, where I was working, made many times that amount, as much as $10,000, he jumped up and said to me, "My God, what do they do with all that money? That's more than a million." In spite of this, I admire the man to this very day. He knew that his children would remain the same as he, if he did not give them a good education. His oldest son Itzak our trouble maker, became a Chartered Accountant (CPA). The second child became a lawyer and I am sure that third one also got a good education.

Some fifteen years later, when we moved back to Montreal from Calgary, we visited the Spivaks. They remembered us well, and told us that we were their favorite tenants. I brought my children to show them where it all began in Canada

The time had come to look for work. Again, Nathan was helpful. He worked in a fruit terminal and that is where he was able to get me my first job - the "prestigious" position of checker. I had to stay at the exit door and examine the boxes leaving the premises to make sure that only those goods that had been marked on the invoices, left the building. To assume this high position, I was examined by my boss, Mr. Alex Salomon. The exam was somewhat different from those I took during my school years. Mr. Salomon took me to a box of apples and asked me to "read this". I read, "Delicious". Then a box of pears, and I read, "Anjou". Excellent he said. I passed the test. My initial salary was $35 for five and a half days work.

The hours were long and very difficult physically, at the start. Checking was only part of my work. I did it during sales hours which were short, from 8:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. The real work started at 7:00 am., when I brought hundreds of cases in from the truck to the floor and put them into their customers' vehicles, piling them up high. This was beyond my strength, at least until I learned the system. I was a strong man but I never worked physically, except in camp. The intervening years made me quite soft again. After two days at the fruit terminal, I had such a terrible backache, I could hardly move. They bore with me and I did not give up. With time, I learned how to work with the two wheelers and how to use my body to my advantage.

Just as we started to get used to the new environment, the summer came along. The fruit business slowed down at the terminal as more local farmers' markets sold domestic products. When the sales declined, my position became expendable. I was fired very "gently' with regret. By now, they liked me, especially my foreman, Harry Zacharin. He tried hard to keep me as long as he could. Maybe I contributed to my own downfall by refusing to clean the boss' car during slack times. When Mr. Salomon sent me to clean his car the first time, I told him in no uncertain terms, "Mr. Salomon, I came to work here in your terminal not to be a personal servant to anybody." And that was the way it remained.

I wish that losing the job was my biggest problem. The Czechs have a saying, 'Trouble does not walk over hills, but over people." That's exactly what happened to us. We had just moved for the third time to our last place with kitchen privileges. It was not something we had planned to do. It came completely by chance. Helen used to take Eleanor out to a small park whenever the weather permitted. We had a nice European style baby carriage and our daughter used to take her afternoon nap there. On one occasion, Helen met an old gentleman named Rabow. He offered her the same deal we currently had, but at a considerably cheaper rate. He was a widower, living alone, and would welcome the chance to have us. We went over, inspected the place and found it was spotless. We made the move immediately, without even waiting for the prepaid month to expire. The Spivaks were nice about it. They understood, telling us that we had probably misunderstood that our rent was supposed to be $55 for the first month only, with a $10 increase afterwards. However, since we had been such good tenants, they forgave us the raise. We remained on good terms. We still did not need a truck to move our belongings - we simply moved in several round trips.

For a while, it looked as though things would get better. Helen started to look around for work she could do at home. Dozens of small factories were giving out garments to be finished in the homes of the "contractors". I did not really encourage Helen to accept any work - she insisted. But it never came to that. One morning, she woke up not feeling well. I looked at her and noticed her eyes were yellowish. Without delay, I took her to Dr. Bloom, a good, old Jewish man, who was very well known in the vicinity. He took X rays, but they showed nothing. We next visited a famous Italian doctor, a Dr. Cantero. He prescribed two kinds of pills and strict rest.

I was now unemployed and the pills were costing about $25 every ten days. We still had some money left. But with expenses what they were, our reserves would not last long. I was advised to seek help from HIAS (in Canada, CHLAS). CHIAS turned us down. The main reason was that I was not a beggar. Had I gone to ask for aid in Brussels, I would have certainly received help. Nobody had to know that I had money. We did not keep our small amount of capital in a bank. It was natural that immigrants, escaping from Communist countries, were broke. To add insult to injury, we paid our own expenses across the ocean, so we had to have money. In any event, we were not their responsibility any longer, having come to Canada on our own.

My first priority was to find a place for Eleanor and it was no easy task. Before I even started to look for a suitable home for Eleanor, Helen's health deteriorated and I decided to take her to the Jewish General Hospital. They took her in immediately and kept her there. They could not tell me much, only that they had to perform tests and it would be two to three days before the results would be analyzed.

Now Eleanor had to be satisfied with the way I took care of her. She was lucky to be in America where Gerber's and Heinz baby food was available. Now, I had to take her along wherever I went because no one else could take care of her. I finally found a place in the home of a French family, very far out in a suburb of Montreal. On a Saturday morning, Yolan visited her sister in the hospital and Fanny volunteered to come along with me to inspect the place. It looked very clean. The family was looking after a few other children and the lady readily showed us around. I brought Eleanor in the afternoon. I just wish I could describe my feelings when I kissed her. From the look in her eyes, she knew something would not be the same. She was just over a year old and was confused by the sudden changes. She missed her mother and now I am sure she felt that I would not be back. Up until then, she knew only three people, Helen, Yolan, and me. Now she was surrounded by strangers.

As painful as it was, I had to leave our baby there, hoping she would not have to stay there long. The cost was $55 per month. Helen was resting comfortably, getting intravenous with some medication added. She was there about three weeks, and I was running from one place to the other, trying to see both Helen and Eleanor as often as possible. In between, I did not neglect to seek some employment. I found a job in a foundry for $5 per day. I worked for two days and left, with all my limbs still intact, even though I had been burnt in a few places. Next I was told by Ernest - you remember, the soldier from the Czechoslovakian Western Army we met in Jablonec - who was working in a dress factory as a presser, that they were looking for pressers. So why not give it a try? Neither my mother, nor my Bubbe, nor my Aunt Klara ever taught me how to press and their "shortsightedness" now turned into a distinct disadvantage. When asked whether I was a presser, I told the truth. "No, I was never a presser, but I worked as one for a short time a long time ago." I told a white lie. They were desperate enough to fill the position, to give me a tryout, which I promptly flunked. They were just not willing to take a chance for a day or two, for me to learn the art. So ended my pressing career.

Again, Nathan came to my aid. He found a job for me in an office of a fruit company. I was to be the stock keeper. It was a very monotonous job, made more difficult by salesmen who wrote their invoices indistinctly. Some of them were excellent salesmen but very poor writers. One of them, Abe was his name wrote a sales slip for fifty bags of cabbage. The checker read it as celery and gave out fifty crates of celery. In the evening, when the stock on the floor was checked, I showed fifty more bags of cabbage at $2.50 and fifty less of celery at $7.75. It took a few hours to find the error. They knew Abe did not know how to write, but was kept there because of his superior salesmanship. My job paid all of $35 a week. It was better than not having one, but not by much. Unemployment insurance paid $26 and I would soon be eligible.

Helen came back from the hospital and naturally, the same evening, I went to pick up our daughter. It seemed that every time I visited Eleanor, she was invariably sitting all by herself: Maybe she didn't understand the French language at all. I never saw her playing with the other children. Although she was always cleanly dressed and looked well fed, she was never as full of pep as she was when she was with us. It usually took me a few minutes to get her to laugh and then it was even more heartbreaking to hear her cry, when I had to leave. This time it was different. I started packing her few belongings and told her, "Mama is home." Eleanor seemed to understand. She grabbed my hand and pulled me to the door. The French lady was really nice to her and gave her a small going away present, kissed her and Eleanor waved goodbye. She remembered her Mama and ran to her as soon as she saw her.

Mr. Rabow, our landlord, did not turn out to be as great a benefactor as we had thought. Nor did we, especially Helen, turn out to be what he expected. While Helen was still weak and in need of all the rest she could get, this "fine gentleman" tried to make advances to her. I do not think he was capable of any more serious an act than wandering hands. However, when he was rebuked by Helen and later by me, our friendship ended. He never spoke to me again, and he spoke only sparingly to Helen. We told him that if he would like us to leave, we would move as soon as possible. He was not really in a rush. Mr. Rabow was the President of a so-called Loan Society, which lent money at exorbitant interest rates. On several occasions he offered me a loan of up to $1,500, with easy repayment terms. The interest would be 24%, at a time when the bank rate was 6%. I never intended to apply for such a loan. Now Mr. Rabow let me know that he would no longer grant such a privilege to me. He did not ask us to move.

We moved anyway, this time to our own apartment on Esplanade Avenue. It was again Nathan who came through like a real trooper. He somehow found out that a family would be moving shortly. Before anybody else could claim the apartment, he took me to a large French company that owned the building. The manager, with the help of $50, reserved the place for us. As soon as he had received official notice that the occupants were leaving, he gave us a lease. The apartment consisted of two bedrooms, a small living room and a kitchen with a refrigerator, all for $55 a month, including electricity and heat. No more kitchen privileges, no more ice boxes, no more wandering from place to place. This was ours. It was not Volove, not Chust, not Bilky, nor was it Jablonec, but it was our own place and most importantly, we were definitely progressing. I owed a sizable sum for Helen's hospital stay, but this would be paid in time. Our only wish was for Helen's complete recovery.

I was still working at the fruit terminal, keeping the records and hating every minute of it. Much to my good fortune, my old foreman, Harry Zacharin, offered me a job. This time, it was, according to Harry, in a permanent position with no need to worry about being asked to clean the boss' car. There was also a raise of $10 involved, which I graciously accepted.

Helen was not doing well. She tried to put on a brave front, but she was not very convincing. I persuaded her to see Dr. Bloom again. He suggested immediate hospitalization That same evening, I left Eleanor in Yolan's care and took Helen to the hospital. This time, she was operated on. They suspected that she had gall stones, but found an infected liver. I was told the doctors scraped her liver clean of all its accumulated sediments. There was nothing else they could do. Helen would have to stay in the hospital for the next six weeks. I managed to place Eleanor in a really good home with the McNeils. The McNeils were a large family and they just loved her. Mrs. McNeil was a fine lady. Our daughter did not lack for anything, except her Mommy, Daddy and Yolan. Helen began to improve. It was our hope that this time, with enough chance to rest, she would recover completely. With this in mind, we had no choice but to leave Eleanor with the McNeils for six months. I visited her several times a week. In time, when Helen was able to get out, we both went to see her as often as possible. As always, the visits were fine, but the goodbyes were painful for all of us. Eleanor's favorite candy bar was "Coffee Crisp". We tried to give her the candy just before we were about to leave, hoping that this would make our departure easier. But it didn't. When she saw us about to leave, she would throw the bar to the floor and run after us. Finally, there was no holding Helen back. She had to have her daughter at home. To keep them apart would have been harmful to Helen's health. We brought Eleanor home. It took Helen two years to completely recuperate and regain her former vitality.

At this point, I must relate one more episode involving CHLAS, which occurred when Helen was in the hospital and Eleanor was at the McNeils. Mr. Mallen, Nathan's boss, was an influential person in his own right. And Mr. Mallen's son-in-law was a member of the Pascal family which was an entity, a Jewish institution to reckon with. Soon after either Mr. Mallen or Mr. Pascal intervened on my behalf, the Aid Society called me for an interview. A lady interviewer told me the Society could help me pay for the upkeep of our daughter and the hospital bills. There was only a slight problem, the way I saw it. CHIAS paid only $38 per month for children placed by them, and paid only for a public ward in the hospital, which was four dollars cheaper than a semi private room. I did not place Helen in a semi-private room. It was done by the hospital. Either Helen would have to wait until there was a place available in the public ward, or take the semi-private room, which she needed immediately. I was willing to pay the difference, but not so said the nice lady. We either pay everything or nothing; nothing was cheaper.

Needless to say, it bothered me at the time. I knew of several cases in which immigrants received regular checks from the Aid Society without even bothering to look for work. They were better off collecting than working. Now I am glad I can say I put myself where I am now, without anybody's financial help.

I worked for Mr. Salomon until late in the summer of 1950 when I left his firm. I was, by then, earning $55 a week when many of my co-workers were still getting only $35. My boss was very surprised when I told him I was leaving. He asked me, "Aren't you afraid to leave a $55 job?" I replied, "Mr. Salomon, now I have to leave a $55 job. Later you may give me a raise, and I will have to let go of a $65 job, which will be harder for me. So I'd better leave now"

Helen's cousin, Fanny, married Harry Izakovits, who received some interesting information from his brother, Joe. Joe claimed it was possible to make good money from the "Newfies", if you had the right goods to sell them. We traveled to Newfoundland to get first hand information. With a little luck, and a lot of effort, we could make enough money to start something more serious later on.

Harry and I bought a truck, worked hard and sent our wives $75 each week. We finished the fall season and came home for the winter. During the winter, I found a job in a textile store and filled in the time until spring, when we again left for Newfoundland. Again we did well enough to keep sending our wives $75 every week. When I came home for the summer, Helen had saved $1,000. This was while paying the Jewish General Hospital $10 each month toward our debt. It took some four years to pay the balance, but pay up we did.

Newfoundland was a fine place to make a few dollars, learn the language and get a feel for doing business. But the climate was rough and it was no place for Helen and Eleanor to live. So I decided to sell my share of the business to my partner, Harry Izakovits. I first had to teach him to drive a truck. Then he took over the reins of our "booming" enterprise. I left for Montreal, and he continued as before, in Newfoundland.

All the newspapers were urging young people to go west So I did. I left for Calgary and I never regretted the move.

I left Helen in Montreal until I found a job - and I had no problem getting one. At that time, the average pay was $1.00 to $1.15 an hour, with ample opportunities for overtime at time and a half. Not only did I take one job, I worked sixteen hours a day. I drove a large truck for a construction company called Burns & Dutton. I then worked another shift at the Gypsum & Alabaster Company. Both companies were owned by the same people who paid me a premium for my second shift.

I was bringing home serious checks, but I could not continue at this pace for long. I managed to find an apartment and soon Helen and our daughter, Eleanor, arrived. My wife was not very enchanted with my choice of apartments. But she soon realized how difficult it was to get what we had. Thanks to Mr. Belzberg of the famous clan, I was able to secure this hole-in-the wall on short notice. The situation in Calgary was even worse than in Montreal. Calgary's oil industry was booming, Alberta had become the fastest growing province and accommodations were at a premium.

Our financial situation had greatly improved. We were able to buy new furniture, including a brand new refrigerator. Helen, as usual, converted our little castle into a show piece, so much so that our landlord, Mr. Belzberg, admired it and brought his wife over to see it. Everything was in place, with a new paint job, new wallpaper, curtains, and a new floor in the kitchen. Afterwards, we were sorry to leave our cozy home.

All good things must come to an end sometime. The two companies I worked for pared back their activity during the winter months. And since winter was coming, I decided to look around for a new business opportunity. In any case, I could not go on working two shifts forever. I had to slow up sooner or later.

Eleanor was now a lively, growing girl. And the hours I worked were hard on her. Some of my shifts were at night, and Eleanor could not understand why she could not make noise and jump around when she got up in the morning. It was difficult to explain to her why I came home and went to sleep just as she would wake up and be in the mood to sing.

By chance, I had come to Calgary with two other boys with whom I worked for a while. One of the boys was Bence Fixler, whose father occasionally worked for us in Torun. Bence and I decided to pool our resources and open a grocery store. We found a good location and would have probably prospered together, except with Bence, it was no simple matter. I remember the wise words of my Zeide, "To find two compatible partners is like finding two beans exactly the same". He was certainly right in this case. We just could not get along. Bence did not speak English very well. Even today, he is still not very fluent. He also relied on me heavily to line up suppliers and to generally run the store. I had never been in the grocery business. But using my common sense and observing other stores and their layouts, I got a good idea of how our store should look and what we should carry. I also found the suppliers we needed.

After a few aggravating sessions with Bence, I finally knew enough people in the food industry to set up something on my own. I knew Bence would never let go of the store, so we arranged for him to buy me out. But it was not exactly at a fair price. I learned a long time ago that the first loss is the best loss. We parted on speaking terms, and maintained a somewhat cool relationship. I purchased another store the following week from a Jewish man who was moving to California It was a good investment. I did not have all the money I needed to cover the full purchase price. But I took over all the debts of the former owner, partly at a bank, partly with suppliers. I got payment extensions from all of them, eventually paid off everybody, and established a good credit rating.

I was paying off my debts, keeping food on the table and finding a few dollars left over for clothing and other essentials. Business was improving and it was time to think of buying a house of our own. I started looking. Whatever I liked and showed to Mr. Belzberg, he considered to be overpriced. No matter what I asked him to evaluate for me, he always found some fault with it. I finally decided to overpay if necessary and purchase what I thought was a reasonably good buy. I finally located a large house, close to downtown, in my price range. This time, without consulting anybody, not even Helen, I made a deal with the seller, right then and there. I paid $4,000 down and the seller took a mortgage for the balance of $9,000, payable at $75 a month. It was just in time. Helen was pregnant with our second child and we needed a bigger place to live. Helen liked the house, but was worried about the additional payments we would have to make on the house and on the furniture we would have to buy. Our new house was a two-storey building that needed some repairs and a good paint job, inside and out. I went to borrow $3,000 from my bank, but my own credit was not yet satisfactory for that amount. Mr. Belzberg readily co-signed my promissory note and with such an endorsement, the bank opened its vaults.

The property was built on a large 50' x 125' lot, with a garden in front and a smaller one in the back. When all the rewiring, painting and alterations were finished, we had two small apartments on the main floor and one in the basement. We occupied the entire upstairs floor, with three bedrooms, a large living room and kitchen. Not only was Mr. Belzberg satisfied, but Helen was particularly happy to have a place of our own.

Our second daughter, Fay Esther, was born in November 1953. Like our first child, she was a cute little baby. She was skinny with red hair and blue eyes. I now had to take care of Eleanor but was not quite sure how to arrange things. I thought of bringing her to the store, where she could either play inside or outside with the neighborhood children. The lady working for me would be able to prepare some meals for her right in the store. As it worked out, there was no need to worry. Our good neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Krebs, took over. They had two small children of their own and did not mind the additional responsibility and work. Both Helen and I never forgot the Krebs' devotion to Eleanor. They fed, dressed and bathed her. They were just marvelous people. The Krebs moved to Toronto some years after we left Calgary. Mr. Krebs passed away not long ago. We are in constant touch with Mrs. Krebs. She visited and stayed with us in Montreal, and we see her every time we visit our daughter Eleanor in Toronto.

Eight years went by. We slowly prospered and even managed to save a little money for a rainy day. My memories keep wandering back and forth. So many things pass through my mind. Eleanor started kindergarten, then attended the Peretz School. My cousins Hedi and Elvi, got married. Hedi moved to Los Angeles. Elvi moved to Chicago. My Uncle Laci finally made it to the United States. Rezsi was recuperating from her bout with tuberculosis. She and Miklos were still in Israel. It would not be long now before they also came to New York with their son, Jacob (Jack). Israel had not been a very lucky place for them. By the time they paid their fare, there was not much money left in the till to bring to their new home. They had to start, like most of us immigrants, from scratch. Rezsi was now the sole provider because it took a while for Miklos to get suitable work. Their second son, Benjamin (Benny) was born. Like those of us before them, they managed and established themselves in a nice apartment and prospered.

Our own children attended the Peretz School. They were both good students, but we could see that there was little future for them in Calgary. Helen was looking even farther ahead than I was. Most Jewish families sent their children away as soon as they reached their teens. Toronto, Montreal, Los Angeles, and to a lesser degree, Winnipeg, were the cities of choice. They all had larger Jewish populations than Calgary. Staying in Calgary meant taking a chance that our children would strike up friendships with gentiles and, many times, such friendships ended in mixed marriages. Of course, there was no assurance this could not happen anywhere else. But common sense told us to give our children at least a chance to live in a city where Jewish boys were more readily available.

We now remembered our old registration at the U.S. Consulate in Belgium, and applied to the Consulate for a transfer to Calgary. When our documents arrived, we were notified that our old registration would not be recognized. In Brussels, we had been called to report for our visas three times. Since the post office returned all the letters without a forwarding address, our application could no longer be honored. The Consul was, however, willing to register us again as of the date we applied for the transfer from Brussels. This was a nice gesture of good will and we accepted the kind offer. For the time being, we were not in any hurry. But Eleanor was nearly finished with her elementary education. And she would soon have to enter a school under the Protestant School Board, because the Peretz School had only six grades.

Our applications finally came through and we were called to the Consulate for an interview. We no longer needed an affidavit. We could amply prove we had enough funds to be able to support ourselves and not become a burden to the U.S. government. Our medical exams were completed, and we received visas which allowed us four months to enter the United States.

We now faced the problem of selling our house and store. And it never failed that when I was the buyer, the prices were high and when I was the seller, the prices were low. The province of Alberta rises and falls with the oil industry. After ten very prosperous years, a depression with a minor "d" set in, just at the time we were selling. Despite everything, we managed to sell the store and the house. We stored our furniture with a moving company which would ship it to us as soon as we established ourselves.

On our way to New York, we stopped in Montreal which turned out to be an important detour. Besides wishing to spend a few days with my old friend, Harry Zicherman, we also met Martin Rosenthal and all the Gedajlovics (except for Ernest, all changed their name to Gedlof). Harry asked me to join him in his wholesale textile business. No details were discussed. I did not reject the offer. It remained open for discussion at a later date. After a few days in Montreal, we left for New York and Helen was again reunited with her sisters, Yolan and Rezsi.

Our departure from Calgary ended an important chapter in our lives – and started a new one.