“You guys will fine me 10 cent a day if I don’t curl my hair, I can’t handle that” It was priceless to see their faces.

Yes of course I told them why I was really leaving.

While in Calgary I met Matt’s judo teacher from Jasper.

“So” he said; “ So you finally smartened up,” I asked him what he meant by that remark. He said; “are you not here in Calgary because you found out that Matt had been cheating on you for years?” I told him that I had not known this at all.

Now I realized why the other railroad wives on our “Koffee Klits Klatches” would ask me if I never worried about my husband when he would be away from home for three days at the time. I had told them that when the day came that I would start thinking that I could not trust my husband, that I would be gone, as I could, nor would, live like that.

I now heard that the whole town had known the truth that Matt was cheating on me. As they say the wife is often the last to know.

I now told Matt that I wanted a divorce. He asked me why I felt that way. I could not believe this, why?

He told me that he would never give me a divorce as he now had an excuse to tell other women, why he could not marry them.

I suggested he could lie, as he was soo good at it. He then told me why he really had wanted me to leave Jasper. He was increasingly getting more worried that I would find out about him, that it would just be a matter of time, before someone would finally be telling me the truth.

His plan had been to get a transfer to Edmonton, call me too come back to him, as he was sure I would, and we would live again, happily ever after.

His plan had backfired on him. He bragged that one of his girlfriend’s daddy was the principal of a school. I asked him if he wanted this printed in the local paper in Jasper. He said that I would not dare to do this.

I told him to try me. This is how I got my divorce from him.

I would never blame the girl as who knows what lies he told this girl.

Well I will share my chocolate bar, not my husband.

I now started to work as an apprentice for a grocery store as a meat wrapper. I wanted to do this because the money was very good. I would be earning the same as a registered nurse. The hours were also better than it would be if I had chosen to be a cashier. I also had less to do with customers.

I wanted to make money in a hurry, so I could see my family in Holland again.

It had been ten years since I had last seen them. Matt had refused to give me the money to go, for he said that I did not deserve it. Yes, I had been working and had handed over my pay checks all this time.

I met a girl who asked if I wanted to be her roommate. I liked this idea.

One day I took a taxi home as I was going out to a party that night. I normally take the bus home, as I had no car.

I told the taxi driver I was going to a party. He asked if I had someone to go with me. I told him that I did not. He offered to take me there.

I realized I was in trouble, as he was not my type, nor did I know him. I was afraid to offend him, so said that this would be fine. Then he said that he did not have my name. I told him that it was in the phone book. “Oh, Okay” he said. I was now at my destination and got out of his car in a hurry, after handing him his money. “Wait please,” he said; “I don’t have your phone number!” I told him that it was in the phone book also. He proceeded to slam himself on his forehead as if to say, of course how stupid of me!

And he drove off. Sure wondered how long it took him. It still makes me smile.

My new roommate Maureen and I went to the Shangri-la, in a place were a lot of foreigners went to dance. It was there that I met a man. He was from Czechoslovakia. He had escaped driving his car through a small checkpoint at high speed. He could barely speak the English language, so making conversation was not easy.

Joseph was a dentist in his country and wanted to get his license here.

He started to do odd jobs in Canada. I went to Holland for seven weeks and told him that he could live in my place while I was gone as when I would come back, he would be working in a mine somewhere in Manitoba I believe.

When he returned a few month later he moved in with me.

Because he wanted to go to the States eventually, I suggested going right away, instead of later. So we did, we went to L.A.

A few months later we moved to North California, to Sacramento.

I had just found out that Joseph was married he had lied to me! He said that he was afraid to lose me, if I knew the truth.

He assured me that the reason he had escaped was also because he wanted to leave his wife. He felt that this was an easier way out. He told me not to worry as she was far away.

I felt, that because I had not been the cause of his break-up, it was all right.

He had left his wife several times in the past he told me but he had always ended up going back and he did not want to go back anymore.

It was in Sacramento that he received a phone call from Germany.

I could not understand what was being said, but he told me as soon as he hung up the phone.

"My wife and two children are in Germany, they have a three-day pass. How she managed that, it is a miracle, because if someone in the family escapes, then the rest of the family is punished, even aunts and uncles.

She is now asking if I want to help her get to America. I told her that I had to think about it” He asked me what he should do. He said that he had wanted to talk to me about it first.

I said; "There is nothing to talk about, there is only one thing to do, you have to help get them here. Do you think that I would want to have this on my conscience, that I will let a family go back to a communist country? Now that they are free? Not on your life Joseph!"

A few months later the family was in the States. Joseph told his wife about me and she said that somehow she had known this.

We had moved back to L.A. and at first Joseph stayed with me, but it soon was apparent that this would not work. They needed him now they could not even speak English. I send him back.

I should have left at this point, but in my mind, I had "loaned” him to them. Later when I had my brain back, I could not believe that I had done this.

Married men had always been taboo for me. I had met a nice man before Joseph. He had divorced his wife, had met her at a party two years later, and was now living with her again. He said it was a mistake having gone back and that each of them where doing their own thing now.

I told him the fact is, that you are living in the same house, so good-bye.

This in my eyes was different, Joseph was with them only temporary, until they were settled in and could speak English etc.

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