1950: the bridge crossing

It was a Saturday evening. June 3, 1950. We were crossing a long bridge and entering Prince Edward County. At the wheel was Mr. John VanderVliet, the fieldman for Dutch immigrants. My father, mother, brother and I sat in the back seat, filled with anticipation and apprehension. Our beginnings in Canada thus far had been tumultuous, to put it mildly!

Nine days earlier, we had landed in Halifax. The first thing we did was call my sister in Moncton, New Brunswick. She had married a Canadian soldier, one of those who liberated us, and moved to Canada in 1946. We were told that the train would stop in Moncton for half an hour. We did not sleep at all that first night on the train! When the train came to a slow stop in Moncton, we saw my sister and husband (with two little ones now) standing on the train’s platform. What a joyful reunion that was, after four years of separation!

We very reluctantly boarded the train once again that would bring us further and further away from them. We spent two nights on wooden, uncomfortable benches. The sad, incessant wailing of the train’s whistle seemed never to stop and especially at night, it evoked a longing for home in all of us. Even today, when I hear the wail of a train whistle, I still at times associate it with those sad nights.

However, in the daylight, excitement took over! We saw the immensity and rugged beauty of our new country – the rocks, the hills, the valleys and the woods – we heard the different sound of the train when crossing a river – we saw wooden houses, so different from the brick houses we knew . . . we thought Canada was beautiful! Dad, however, worried about all the rocks he saw and concluded that Canada was not a good country for farming.

Problems in Montreal

We knew we were going to a place called Grafton, Ontario, but upon arrival in Montreal, we were told that the man who was going to employ my Dad had changed his mind.

This was a big disappointment! Dad no doubt regretted his decision to emigrate and leave our good jobs in Holland. The main reason to emigrate was that we all, and particularly my Mother, missed my sister terribly. The expectation had been that we would be able to settle in the area where she lived.

Our stay in Montreal lasted a whole week. Finally, there came a call for us to go back on the train, this time to Belleville, Ontario. That was all we were told. Mr. VanderVliet would meet us there.

And so it happened that on that Saturday evening, June 3, we were travelling with Mr. VanderVliet over the long bridge that connects Prince Edward County with the mainland. It was early evening and there was still daylight.

Tight quarters

After about half an hour’s drive, Mr. Vander Vliet stopped in Picton, at the house of the Home Missionary of Bethany Christian Reformed Church (CRC) in Bloomfield, the Rev. Gerrit Andre. Mrs. Andre offered us a cup of coffee, which tasted delicious after all our travelling. We were told that we would be picked up to attend church in Bloomfield the next morning. That was so exciting! The CRC church in Bloomfield was established in 1948 and there were already thirty families attending.

It was dark when we arrived at what looked like an old farmhouse. When Mr. VanderVliet stepped out of the car, we watched his discussion with the farmer. We sensed that something was not right. After a long while, the car door was opened and we could exit. The farmer did not look very happy.

Mr. VanderVliet left, and we were on our own. There was hardly enough room for an extra four people in that rather small farmhouse, but they prepared beds for us. We later found out the farmer had not applied for a family but for just a “farm-hand.”

Spring of 1950

I was able to get a job right away in the Picton hospital kitchen. Before seven o’clock every morning, I biked to Picton, about 3 kilometres away. I peeled potatoes, washed dishes, cleaned silverware and set tables. It was a big change from the office job I’d held in Holland, but I liked it. The hospital was facing the Bay of Picton, and during my break, I enjoyed sitting by the water. Again, I thought Canada was beautiful.

Dad, who used to work in botanical gardens in Holland, now had to work in the heat of the fields. We would often bring him something to drink. Dad seemed to adjust though, despite the language barrier and not being used to field work. It was a different story for my mother. Mother had to cook in the farmer’s kitchen and did not have utensils yet. Our kist (box) with all our belongings had been sent to Grafton.

There wasn’t enough room in that farmhouse, and not enough drinking water. After about four weeks, my parents decided to leave. A family from church, from the province of Groningen (as we were), invited us to stay with them until our kist arrived and Dad found another job.

Something unexpected

On an afternoon in August, a big car stopped alongside me as I walked home from the hospital. An older gentleman asked me if I wanted a ride. He seemed very kind. I was tired and very hot, so I got in the car. He asked me where I came from. When I told him about our immigration and that I used to work in an accounting office in Holland, he asked if I would be interested in working for him. He was the president of a canning factory in Bloomfield. The tomato season was coming up and he needed someone in the office. I was totally taken by surprise by his question.

So, in August 1950, I started my job in the office of Baxter Canning Co. At first, the main part of my job was keeping an eye out for the wagons and trucks loaded with crates full of tomatoes that pulled up to the grading station. After the tomatoes were graded – first, second or third quality – the farmer, happy or unhappy with the grade, would approach the scales with his load. I would weigh the load. I got to know a lot of farmers that way and met many of my countrymen.

Across the water

My work made me feel that I played a small part in fellow Dutch immigrants’ lives, who were all working towards a farm of their own. During the seven years that I worked there, I saw several of them reach that goal. It was the church and our faith and trust in God that sustained us in the struggle for a new life in our new country.

On Sunday afternoons, along with some other young people, I often went to see that great expanse of water, Lake Ontario, that was all around us. Even though I knew it wasn’t the ocean, I felt as though across that water, my homeland lay with all the people that I had loved in the first twenty years of my life.

Now, many years later, I still love the beautiful country where the Lord has planted me and where I bore my children, but it has always had to share my love with that quaint, little country by the North Sea where I was born.