LEAVING SAFE HARBORS

Part Two

Immigrating from Denmark  to Canada

In the end of November 1966 my ex-husband Keld Harly Neumann Johansen (later just Neumann), and I literally left our “safe harbor” - Copenhagen – Denmark -  to immigrate to Alberta, Canada.

We had two main reasons for going to Canada.

·         To adopt children

We found out that I could no longer have children so we wanted to adopt children.

 A friend of ours – through the LDS church had told us that there was a great need for adoption of Native Indian children in Alberta, Canada, so we decided to immigrate.

At that time – in Denmark – if you already had one child, you could not adopt.

·        To start our own music business

While Keld had worked as a “Postman” in Copenhagen for quite a while.

He got interested in piano tuning and spent two years training with the Hornung and Møller piano Company in Copenhagen. He worked for  the company part time, but wanted to work full time as a tuner and we hoped to own our a music store.

10 DAYS ON THE ATLANTIC OCEAN ON THE SHIP BATORY

Here we are on batory

We left Copenhagen on the Polish ship Batory November 25^th for a 10 day trip on the ocean.

It was a beautiful boat to sail on, but I was seasick all 10 days and could not enjoy the wonderful food they had there,  nor the swimming pool.  We did get an evening of entertainment in though, with dancing etc.  It was awesome.

The M.S. Batory was a large (14,287 BRT) and luxurious ocean liner of the Polish merchant fleet, named after Stefan Batory, the famous sixteenth-Century king of Poland.

M.S. Batory survived the war years (1939-45) being known as a "Lucky Ship" due to her wartime successes - she took part in many military actions such as the evacuation of the French-Polish-British corps from Narvik (1940), evacuation of allied troops from St. Nazaire and St. Jean de Luz (1940), invasion of Algier and Sicily (1942), military voyages to India (1943), six months services as a troop carrier from Egypt to Italy (1943) and the invasion of southern France.^[1]

During many years of service, M.S. Batory carried out 222 round trips across the oceans, first on the New York run, later the India Line and finally the Canadian Line, carrying over 270,000 passengers altogether. She also performed around 75 cruises, tourist trips, transportation of children to Poland for summer holidays with over 30,000 passengers taking part. During her war time service of over six years, she carried about 120,000 soldiers. She visited about 150 ports in all parts of the globe.^[2]

Following her services for the country, she subsequently became the pride and icon of the Polish Ocean Lines and the entire Polish navy, although serving as a passenger carrier rather than a warship.

TRAVELLING WITH TRAIN ACROSS CANADA

After we arrived in Quebec, we had to catch a train to Edmonton, Alberta.

It was a three-day trip and was very enjoyable, except for the waiters on the train kept telling us “that we ate too much butter on our bread”.

ARRIVING IN EDMONTON ALBERTA

Dick (Richard Jensen  – a Canadian born in Taber, Alberta who had served two years on a mission in Copenhagen, Denmark -  helped us – together with his wife Arvella - to immigrate to Canada.

Dick and Arvella lived in Coleman, Alberta, where Dick worked as City Manager.  

They came to Edmonton to pick us up and was totally shocked when they found out that we “very rudely" had forgotten to tell them that we were bringing a 6 month old St.Bernard dog.

When I thought about that later, I wondered where our brains were.

OUR EXCITEMENT CHANGED WHEN ARRIVING IN COLEMAN, ALBERTA

It was not before we “arrived” and started our “new life in Alberta and British Columbia” that we realized that “we had left a very safe harbor” and a “very safe life” where we were doing good both financially, emotionally and mentally.

When we lived in Husum, Copenhagen we were both working at that time.  I worked part-time and took care of Linda and the home the rest of time. Financially we felt very blessed and had no worries about money.

I personally went in to shock, after being in Coleman for about a week.  It was a ghost town.

I walked around in the black streets crying and was ready to go back to Denmark.and the first year was very difficult for me.

If Keld had said “let us go home” I would have packed my bags immediately, but Keld wanted to stay.

SETTLING IN LETHBRIDGE, ALBERTA

Nevertheless, we were blessed right away what work was concerned. After we had been in Coleman for three weeks, Keld and I took the bus from Coalman to Lethbridge and Keld found a job the same day with the Heintzman piano company as piano tuner.

We had brought $1000 Canadian with us from Denmark.  We spent half of that -  $500 -  to purchase a blue van so Keld could drive around and tune pianos.

We moved to Lethbridge and our daughter Linda – age 10 at that time started school in Lethbridge.

We applied immediately for adopting an “Indian Boy” and 6 months later we got this beautiful little boy who was half native and half Hungarian.  We named him Harly.

MOVING TO BRITISH COLUMIA

The Heintzmann Company kept sending Keld to Trail, British Columbia to tune pianos.

Since that became our only income we decided to move to Trail, BC right after we got our baby boy Harly in June 1967.

We ended up living in Kinnaird (now amalgamated with Castlegar) in a little house that Dorothy and Herman Skaaning rented to us. We were very lucky and grateful that we could rent that mini house for $50 a month where there were apple trees and cherry trees and blueberries and we could grow our own vegetables.

Our little house in Kinnaird.

But, we were still “dirt poor” and always struggling having enough food to eat. We could not even purchase regular milk for Harly’s bottle, but had to use powder milk.

In the summer, we went and gathered Elderberries and for a long time we literally lived on Elderberry soup with dumplings. 

The only decoration we had for our Christmas tree were cards we received from family and friends in Denmark, that I cut out and poked a hole in to hang on the tree.

We did not have a living room.  Only a kitchen and a bedroom where we also had Harly’s bed. 

Linda had to sleep in the basement.  She had to walk outside the house to get down to her bedroom.  It scared her. Our house was so tiny that we had to make a room in the basement for Linda, but she had to walk “outside” to get down there and it scared her.

I took the local phone book and phoned EVERY PERSON living in Kinnaird and Castlegar asking them if they had a piano that needed tuning so we could survive.

In 1968 we had luck with us when an Italian merchant in Trail, offered us to purchase his music business: “Columbia Music” with “no down payment”.

Vibeke Lindhardt

19 July 2017