My dad always talked about immigrating. He wanted to go to Australia, and started to take English lessons. Mom found out, that while the men worked in the bush the whole week and would not come home in the meantime, she would have to stay in the camp with the other women and children. That did it for her she was not going.

It was shortly after the war and she did not have the stamina to go it alone, even for a week at a time. Dad had no other interest than to go to Australia, so that was the end of that.

My boyfriend and his family also had plans to leave the country, but they wanted to go to the U.S.A.

They had joined the Mormon Church, for the church helped people to get to the States. They would find a house for you, pay the rent for six months, stuff it with groceries, and find you a job.

When they told the Mormons that their plans were to move to the States, they were told that the church would no longer be bringing people there and help them.

They now wanted to build up the church in Europe.

It was “good bye” to the Mormon Church now.

My boyfriend’s family had only joined the church to use them. Now my friend and I started talking about immigration.

After the war, there was a severe shortage of housing, so the government encouraged people to leave. Countries like South Africa, Canada, the United States, Australia and New Zealand were the most popular.

We succeeded in getting our visas for Canada quite unexpected, and we could leave in May. We had only four weeks to make plans. We sure were busy beavers now, things to buy at the last minute, and we had a wedding to plan too, all in a few weeks time.

We were married on May 3rd. ‘58 at city hall in Groningen.

My younger sister Marge was married before me and she too had a small wedding.

It had been the wish of my youngest sister Ina, to be a bridesmaid.

She was the youngest of us six and eight years old at the time.

With four sisters above her the possibility was there, but now two of those chances were gone.

Ina's girlfriend Ann came over just as Ina was helping mom with the dishes in the kitchen.

Ann was beside herself so excited.

"Guess what Ina, my sister Ruth is getting married and I am going to be the bridesmaid and guess what Ina, I will be walking right behind the bride and groom.“

Talk about rubbing salt in an open wound!

“Poeh”, was Ina's reply; “So what? When my mom and dad got married, I walked right in between them.” (Top that one if you can)

We were on our way to a new life in far-away Canada. I was twenty years old my new husband was twenty-two. I spoke no English, he spoke the language a little bit, some English he had picked up in the navy.

We had two hundred and fifty dollars among us, which was all we were allowed to bring into the country.

The government gave the immigrants a choice, boat or plane?

We chose the boat.

So it was that the "Grote Beer", (the large bear), brought us to Halifax, pier 21, arriving on May 19^th ‘58.

As often as we could, we would buy bread, butter and some luncheon meat at the little convenience stores along the way. Some people looked at us with disdain, when they saw we had put a towel over a suitcase and had our meal that way. Soon others joined us and we told each other from this day on, when something cost 10 cents in Canada, we would not change it back to Dutch money. Ten cents, was now ten cents!

This whole train was full of immigrants, some hired out as farm hands, while never having milked a cow in their lives. It was for some the only way to be admitted into the country. Others went to family. The farmers would not always be kind to their farm workers, they thought the people were just uneducated and would not mind living in a converted chicken coupe.

When the day came that the “kist” arrived, the container that held all their belongings from Holland, many farmers became jealous, and did not know what to make of these people, whom they thought came to Canada, because they had nothing.

The Dutch furniture was often better and nicer than what the farmers themselves had. The main reason the Dutch came to Canada was a shortage of homes in their own country, and not a good future to be had for their children.

Holland is so small and it does not have the possibilities a country like Canada has.

The men would be glued to the windows of the train see a car and say; “I will have something like that, as soon as possible.” You can be sure that the first pictures that found its way back to Holland, were the ones posing with the “new” car.

Everyone would wonder what was in those little black boxes they saw some people carrying. We found out later that these were lunch-boxes.

A lot of people went out of the train in Montreal, as Dutch officials came on board to tell the people, they better get of here, as there is no work further west. Your train tickets are good for one year, so there is nothing to worry about, they were told. Most left the train at this point.

We didn't.

Then it was by train further to Vernon, a town in the Okanagan fruit valley, in B.C. It took days!

My mother had a brother living in this town. I had only met this family one time. While still in Holland I now send them letters telling them that my new husband, and I would be coming to Canada soon and would my aunt tell us what too bring with us or not to be bringing.

My aunt and I exchanged a few letters.

Then came the letter that the family were very sorry but would be unable to help us once we were in Canada.

Even though my husband’s parents had left the Mormon Church, they were so worried about us they scrounged up addresses from missionaries so we would have a place to go too. They sent those addresses to us on the ship. My husband liked the Mormons and decided to try and find them.

No such luck! Mormon missionaries stay at each place approximately six months. We went back to the station where our suitcases were being held. We were now ready to go to Vancouver. While waiting for the train, I asked my husband to ask one more person, the man who held our suitcases, if he knew Mormons. He sure did.

This man knew the president. He made a phone call, and twenty minutes later a large car arrived, and we were taken to their home. The family recently had a house build, and since my husband was a carpenter by trade, they asked the contractor to hire him and he did. Matt started the very next day!

We found out later that if we had gone on to Vancouver, it would have been our biggest mistake. There was no work, and the people came to the Okanagan to find work.

When we first moved in with the Gregson's, I did not understand the situation. Mr. Gregson did not go to work, but stayed at home and worked with his wife in their vegetable garden. Matt, my husband was at work, so what was I supposed to do? What was expected of me?

I went for short walks and did some dishes.

Most of my time was spend in my room writing letters. Several days later I looked under the bed for my shoes, but oh what was that? Mrs. Gregson walked into the kitchen just then and I called her.

Most bedrooms in those days had linoleum instead of carpet. I made her look under the bed and I told her; "Snowflakes!" Well the dust bunny's did sort of look like it.

Question is where I found that word, as is was the end of May and it was already hot in the Okanagan.

Mrs. Gregson never even cracked a smile she must have been tempted too though. It was about a year later, when she asked me if I still have snowflakes under my bed.

Later I found out that it just so happened, that Mr. Gregson was on vacation when we came to their home, and that he was a manager at the local Safeway store.

How many times I cried because I could not speak nor understand English. You can tell the people you don't speak English, but what can they do but speak louder, or repeat themselves?

Right away, I bought a radio and I had a Dutch-English dictionary.

On the radio I could not make out a word. It sounded like one steady stream of words. So I bought a newspaper and that worked, as you very soon get fed up looking up words.

I was four weeks in Canada when a lady started to talk to me in a store. She asked me how long I was in Canada. I answered her, that it was four weeks. She was very impressed that I could understand, and answer her in such a short time.

I had made it my practice that when I heard a new word to use it often so I would become more familiar with it.

My husband working in construction came home with the word Sh.t

I thought it was a stop word it, had some oomph to it.

I happened to be alone with Mr. Gregson and waited for him to say something, anything, so I could add, “oh Sh.t to it.”

After a while Mr. Gregson had enough of this, and told me not to use that word again, as it was a bad word.

I learned to be more careful, especially with words that Matt brought home from construction.

I like to talk, that is a big help when learning a new language.

My dad used to say that if everything was as good as my mouth, he would never worry about me. He said that I should have been a lawyer, as I could talk myself in and out of everything.

Not easy!

It was amazing to me that nobody, not to my face anyway, laughed when I told a little girl that she was a nice curl. I told a heavy lady in the store where I worked later, that her head was too big, meaning her hat.

In Dutch, some words have one meaning. In English, some words can have two meanings. I always managed to pick the wrong one. “I am carrying my new sweater today, while wearing it.

Oh look at the beautiful air tonight, instead of sky, or may I lie in your garden?” Someone answered me that I could lay in his yard, but to stay out of his garden.

The family Gregson had helped us find our own place. It was not much of a place. It had a living room that was also our kitchen. It had one bedroom, which we also used to sit on the bed, as it was better than the hard wooden chairs in the kitchen. If we needed to cook it was the hotplate or a large wooden stove.

I managed to do canning on that hotplate. No shower, no bath, just a toilet and sink to share with an old man called Charlie.

Not much, but it was home to us, our first.

A box of cherries, forty pounds cost one dollar. We bought two boxes.

To keep them from spoiling we placed the cherries under water, they all busted.

Yes it was living and learning all the time.

We had no car, so one day walking down the main street Matt saw a sign in a restaurant window. He knew enough English to be able to read what it said. He told me that it said that someone was needed to work in the kitchen. I had been introduced to another Dutch lady, so I asked her to come with me for the interview.

I didn't get the job.

A few weeks later, I walked by this place again, this time alone.

I recognized that same sign. I didn't know that the lady standing by the cash register was the owner.

I just walked in, pointed to the sign in the window, showed her my hands, opened and closed them, turned them around and over to show her see, they are working just fine! I must have said something in English as the lady said; "Now you speak English.” I told her that I was mad.

Mad because I didn’t get the job the first time. Now I did get the job. Lesson one, do your own talking no matter how bad it is.

Even learned how to dry dishes, no, no, not one plate at the time, a stack at the time! I also had to make French fries. They are put in large barrels with a chemical to keep them white. This was done in the basement of the restaurant.

The servers would come downstairs, to get things like syrup.

I found several dead mice stuck to the cans. I cleaned up that place in the hurry.

Two weeks later a woman came to me with a large smile. Thanking me for taken her place, as she could not have gone on vacation otherwise.

The Gregson's as I mentioned earlier, were Mormons.

Mr. Gregson was the president. Never had I set foot in a Mormon Church before, but we now felt obligated into going. The whole Sunday was taken up by church and visiting. One Sunday afternoon we had gone for a drive in the country, just the two of us. We were told that this was a no, no, as this was the Lord's Day.

"God made all of nature for us to enjoy, so how can He possibly mind that we want to enjoy it, we wanted to know.

I noticed that in the same street where the Mormon Church was located, there were several other churches of different denominations.

There was no objection to smoking or drinking coffee, if that is what you wanted to do. Why was there a difference? Was it not all the same God?

In my in-laws house in Holland, I had met many Mormons they liked to visit with them, as their door was always open to the boys. It was not easy converting the Dutch, the fellows would often be discouraged.

The visits were for them a welcome relief.

Every time a new missionary came they would ask, if we would please play that recording again, and they would point to a certain record. It was played and they would laugh their heads off. They did not want to tell us what was so funny on that recording, and because it was all in English, we could not understand it ourselves.

We found out later, why it was so funny to them. The song went; "I have a bunch of bananas and a bottle of gin it keeps the hunger out and the happiness in."

Since Mormons are not allowed to drink alcohol, plus the fact that the host family did not know what the words on the record meant, made it all the more funny to them.

But here we were now in Canada, and going to their church.

Mrs. Gregson tried her best to make us into Mormons, but I had trouble believing the story about Joseph Smith and the rest, like God was once a man, that we can become like Gods and will inhabit our own planet one day.

My husband was addicted to cigarettes and we drank coffee, we had no intentions of giving that up.

There was also the fact that "their God" would not let us enjoy His creation on Sundays.

When could we go then? We were both working during the weekdays. We dropped out of the church. We had gone for nine month and felt no longer obligated to go.

Never setting foot in another church Mormon or otherwise for a long time.

People say to me the Mormons are nice people, they are and I have met people of other religions that are nice too. They are just people like you find elsewhere. We are not so bad ourselves. It was not the point of who was nice or nicer. It is what people stand for, what they believe in, that is what counts.

Living in the middle of the fruit valley there are lots of packinghouses. I was hired in one, and given large rubber boots and an apron.

Tomatoes were the job for me here. Steaming kettles were coming down the line the tomatoes just having been cooked so it was now easy to remove the skins.

A card was hanging on your apron and if the supervisor judged the pot full enough she would mark your card.

On my second day, my pot was 3/4 full when I was told to move over. I just stood there, as I had no clue what was meant by, moving over. Again, move!

The supervisor yelled it now. Move! I did not react I just stared at her.

She was now getting to look like the color of my tomatoes.

A lot of the women had stopped working. Shocked at the audacity of this new girl not to move when told to do so.

All of a sudden my kettle gets grabbed and shoved down the line.

"Heh, that is mine and I want the credit for it."

So I went after that pot, and of course that had been the idea all along.

I had learned another new word.

If you did more than your quota, you were paid extra.

I was over my quota in three days so they moved me to a table with green beans. The machine takes of the ends of the beans and it is your job, to find the ones the machine has missed. Can you imagine staring at green beans streaming past you for 9 hours at a time?

Most of the people working there were foreigners. They would shake their heads at me, and tell me that I was a bad girl that I should still be in school. I told them that I had left school six years earlier.

Well sorry but we need to go back to those beans.

I found an apple box and sat down on it. This was better by far!

The women were hissing at me that I could not do that. What do you mean I can't, I just did!

I was never told to stand up and not one other woman took my example. Why were these women so afraid of authority?

My thinking was if I lose this job, there would be others, for I know that I am a hard worker.

Next we had to do apples. I lasted one day there. Rows and rows of apples pass you by, and you have to decide in a split second, what grade they are 1-7 different grades. The apples are then going down the line, to fall in a certain bin because of their size.

Then women wrap the apple in a tissue, to be put in a slot in a box, ready then for shipping.

I now was put in charge of weighting the apples and to keep score.

Up to 2 lb over was allowed but it was never to be under the weight it was supposed to be.

After the fruit was all done, I went to the employment office.

They told me to come back in two weeks. I was back the next day. They showed me on a calendar where it showed two weeks later. I was back the following day.

This went on for another day. By now all the people in the office knew me. "You really want to work don't you," Of course that is why I was there wasn’t I?

I was send to the five-dime store. They put me in the hardware department, $25.00 a week would be my wages.

Hardware is difficult even when your English is good.

Well I just had to play at being “stupid” a little more often. One day a couple came in asking for ornaments. I did not have the foggiest idea what they were. I would go to another staff member and tell them that I couldn’t find ornaments, trying to mimic the words as best as I could. “They are right there honey”

So “honey” would now know what ornaments where, never to be forgotten!

I stayed in that store about six months.

We decided to leave Vernon and move to Kelowna,

where I started to work at Mc Gavin’s bakery. When I walked into the office I met the owner. He hired me. I don’t know how he could, even as the owner, for the bakery was a strict union place. The other workers were surprised when I walked in, but said nothing.

I was told I would be earning $1.75 an hour. A penny more then my husband earned. My husband had gone for four years to a trade school in Holland, where he became a finishing carpenter. When I told him what I would be earning, he thought I must have it wrong, I assured him that when it came to money, I had heard it right.

After having lived there a few years, my uncle and aunt came over from Jasper, and talked us into moving there. This was not the same aunt and uncle that lived in Vernon, we found out later while already living in Canada, where they lived.

In ‘62 we arrived in the Rocky Mountains.

Matt had quit his carpenter job and started to work for the railroad. Were once he hated holidays, as he would not be able to work that day, he now became lazy.

Because I had been with him since I was fourteen years old I never realized what a control freak he was.

I went to the hospital in Edmonton to find out why I could not become pregnant, Matt had been checked out first and was found to be okay.

I stayed in that hospital for ten days. You name it and it was done to me. In the end six doctors stood around my bed and told me, that if all their patients were as healthy as me that they would all be out of business.

There was one session with a psychiatrist. I did not feel like talking to this doctor so I told him what I thought was a somewhat stupid story.

It was something that had just happened recently.

In the old house we rented, the hot water tank stood in the bathroom. Matt called me one day and told me to look behind the tank, and to tell him what I saw. I said that it looked like a dust or spider web. “Right” he said; “Do you know how long it has been there? Four weeks!”

The doctor asked me if I did not see it. I told him that no, I didn’t see it.

What should I be seeing? ”The guy is a sadist the doctor said.

Why did he not remove it himself, why did he wait four weeks? He came looking everyday, hoping it still would be there, so he could really lower the boom on you.”

You know what I thought was just a dumb story, helped me to see a lot of things, I had never noticed before. It truly opened my eyes.

I would ask Matt why everything was in his name only, like the lot we had bought to build our own home on, the car, and the money in the bank.

He would say that this was the way it was done in Holland. Or he would ask me why I wanted things in my name. ” Are you planning to run away from me?” Too prove that this was not the case it all, I would shut my mouth again.

He would know exactly which words to use to manipulate me.

We often had arguments and I often felt he was picking them more and more. One day he told me that we should separate for awhile as we had been together for too long and it was because of this that we argued so often.

I was devastated to say the least.

I should have been suspicious as to why we got the legal separation papers so fast and why I was practically hustled out of town, but I did not say anything at the time. It all would become clear to me someday.

Go to: Table of Contents or Next Chapter