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.
