Memorable

  Yesterday I decided it was time to sort through some boxes containing stuff saved after our house fire. The main reason for this undertaking was to find old documents and family history stuff. My trip to my aunt rekindled my passion for putting my past into some sort of order for the girls.
   After an entire day all I managed to get to was a box with papers  my parents had kept about the hardship of their emigrating, the leaving of two children behind until they felt more secure in their newly chosen city. Many letters were written back and forth to our caregivers and I spent hours reading rather than sorting.
   Their writing weaves a history that had me spell bound and wondering how I missed this material completely in past years. Now I shall attempt to collate some of their letters into some sort of timeline. Who knows what else I might discover along this undertaking? 
   For example I discovered some letters and flight documents so my brother and me could to get into Canada including parental pleas to KLM to ensure that we would make the journey safely. We were to travel alone and there were numerous stops and plane changes along the way. 
   This led me to recalled that voyage. I was merely eight and Roli six at the time. Early in the month of October my grandpa and aunties dressed us in warm clothes for the flight. Then we were off to the local airport. Grandpa got to take us up into the plane, handing us over to the staff who also got our travel documents. (I guess it didn't occur to him that he ought to have made us travel pouches to be worn around our necks.) After hugs he had to get off leaving us to whoever was in charge. The first leg of our trip was a short flight to Amsterdam where we were to board the bigger trans Atlantic machine (as huge as they were back in 1954).
   I recall the thrill of the take off. My brother had the window seat because he was smaller and I could see over him. Soon puffs of cloud that looked like white cotton candy to me appeared. Then not knowing their scientific make up I just imagined them as pillows holding us up! Ha!
   The landing that followed made our tummies tickle a lot. Roli and I giggled. We just loved this better than any carousal ride we'd been on. Upon landing we were escorted to a waiting area and told that our next flight would be in about two hours. What a long boring time it was! We couldn't understand the language of those trying to entertain us. And when the time came we couldn't board the huge plane. Seems whoever was in charge of our papers passed on our tickets but not our passports! I could sense that something was really bothering the staff around us. They did tell us that they would fix it but it would take a bit of time. For Roli and I it just meant an extremely boring and very long wait. Eight hours later the next flight would take off with us assuming our passports would show up. Forty-five minutes before take off they remained missing. 
   But then someone ran up to us, grabbed us and whisked us to the ramp of a very large plane where we were handed over to the cabin staff. They must have found our passports. I bet this staff would have been very careful not to misplace them!
  Our seats were close to the galley so the staff could keep us busy and keep an eye on us. Soon the engines roared and we taxied, lifted off in the dark heading towards Glascow. There we landed but stayed in the cabin. Others got on. Another take off into the night. The moon shone but down below it remained totally dark. We were told it was the ocean. Scary ideas went through my mind briefly. I didn't know how to swim. 
   The plane carried on, it's engines roaring and lulling us into brief naps. We dared not sleep deeply. As daylight appeared, Roli and I were given a tour of the cockpit and met the captain. I was impressed by all the staff. In fact I recall thinking maybe I would grow up and be a stewardess.
   Finally it was time to land again. We had arrived in Canada, in Gander Newfoundland where immigration was done. I don't recall exactly how but I think we went into some rooms where the documents were reviewed, accepted and stamped. Some small card was added into the passport. Immigration was completed. It was time to board the same plane again. Yet again take off was delayed. The health examiner discovered someone had broken out in a rash and we all had to be examined. Roli and I passed the test. One mother and her child were off loaded while the father and second child had to continue on. It kind of upset me. I knew how it felt to be separated from a parent. I was on my way to be reunited with mine after 8 months of separation but this trip was taking so very long.
    The final stop for the big KLM machine was Montreal. From there we had to be transferred to a Toronto flight. But of course an other issue arose. We has missed our connecting flight. Apparently one did not get put onto a later flight automatically when this happens. There was even a fee needed to carry on and since we were just kids what could we do to fix that?
   Our KLM captain came to our rescue. He pleaded on our behalf stating that an issue in Amsterdam began the snowball effect that could not be blamed on the child passengers. He managed to convince the Trans Canada Airline to put us on the next available flight to Toronto. More waiting. Then one more short haul on a smaller plane before it was all over. We had left on the tenth and didn't arrive till the twelfth.
   Close to twenty four hours late, our parents had no clue where we were and why we had not yet arrived at their airport. Seems they had quite a hair raising experience, one that included fears of us being kidnapped. Recall that back then information travelled very slowly. Telegraphy was used to spread news fast. Phones were too expensive and long distance was a novelty for the very rich I believe.
    Once our parents got the good news that we were nearly in Toronto they were very happy to pick us up from Malton Airport. We had had a long journey, a memorable one with a happy ending.

Marianne

October 1954. Marianne in Toronto. We had just arrived to be reunited with our parents.

December 5th, 1988
On this day my mom took her last breath after trying to battle a cancer that invaded her lung and then her liver. She has been gone for a long time yet her memory lives on in my heart.

RAIMUND

October 17, 1954 Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    

  The passport said June 21st, 1920 but my grandfather told me about the clerical error. It happened at the birth registration office. And it stayed that way. So on June 22 my father was born into the neighbourhood of Aussig, a city that was renamed at the time the Czech Republic took over the area. I never saw his birthplace but he told me about it. My Dad loved the mountains and the Elbe River that flowed right by the city. He spoke of pirate ships that were stopped at a bend in that river. He spoke of his cat the walked across the piano keys in the middle of the night. He loved playing piano. He enjoyed his youth. He studied English and dreamed of a life in America after completing his studies. But a war broke out and when it ended he was a refugee in British occupied Germany near Hannover. That's where I was born and where he worked with the British. His English German language instructional newspaper, The World and Press Sprachzeitung, was launched in 1949 in Bremen at the Carl Ed Schuenemann Verlag (www.schuenemann-verlag.de). In June of 1952 he was invited by the USA government to launch his concept of a language instructional newspaper as a teaching tool. His travels spanned from coast to coast with a budget of $15,000 and lasted over six weeks. A visit to Niagara Falls with a border crossing was on the tour. There he was charmed by the life style and the future possibilities for his family so in the fall of 1953 he decided to emigrate to Canada.
  He choose Toronto because he had a friend who had preceded him and could help him to get started in his new venture . Once he found a job and a place to stay he had my mother join him and together they worked hard to get the rest of us to his side. My brother and I joined them in the fall of 1954. Raimund continued with language education ideas and local newspapers in ethnic languages. He collaborated in the translation (German to English) of one of the first coloured picture dictionaries, Witte Kinderlexikon, by Wilhem Berger. Raimund worked with doctors and photographers to develop medical teaching books illustrated with coloured instructional material. They were created with collaboration of the Ryerson Press Publishers and the University of Toronto. He was not happy with the colour print technology in Toronto so he found a way to import very modern German rotogravure colour printing press in 1958. He accomplished this expensive venture by merging a German company with the Harding Brothers, creating Harding Trini Gravure and Co. The new plant located in the modern Golden Mile of Scarborough was used to house the machine and to print some great colourful soap boxes ordered by Lever Brothers and others Colgate Palmolive. I recall seeing Crisco boxes too. From Ottawa, the federal government ordered beautiful coloured travel posters of Canadian scenes. Over the machine's required specially imported ink was deemed too expensive to operate in Toronto profitably. The project failed and the machine was sent to New York City in 1963. My father did not see it all dismantled and shipped but I did.
  He died suddenly of a heart attach in the early hours of September 10,1962. On the 9th we had been in Niagara Falls for a day trip. That evening he played his favourite music. He always played a bit on his piano before settling down to sleep but that time he chose his old Hohner accordion, the instrument that had helped him through tough times especially the war and post war days. It was a rare treat to hear him play it. Perhaps he knew something felt different and he wanted one last chance to play it? That was the last time I heard a live performance from him. I still miss him. I will always be his Kleinste Motte.