MY LIFE IN LETHBRIDGE. ALBERTA, CANADA

I immigrated to Canada from Copenhagen with my ex. Keld Neumann Johansen and my daughter Sussie Linda 1966.  We left Copenhagen around November 25^th on the ship “Batory”.

It was a 10-day trip where I spent most of the time in the cabin throwing up, while Keld and Linda enjoyed all the good foods and the swimming pool.

We arrived in Quebec and drove with a train three days arriving in Edmonton Dec. 8 1966.

Our friends Dick and Arvella Jensen opened their home to the three of us, plus our St.Bernard dog Ponti. We stayed with Dick and Arvella for three weeks when Keld was lucky finding work with the Heintzmann Piano company in Lethbridge and January 1, 1967 we moved to 1818, 5^th Ave North in Lethbridge.

Here is the first house we lived in, in Lethbridge with our blue Van.

 We brought only $1000 to Canada with us and spent half of that on our Van. We took a gamble with our money, but Keld needed a vehicle in order to travel and tune pianos and the Heintzman Company constantly sent him to Trail and Castlegar, British Columbia to tune pianos.

Even though we felt more comfortable in a “bigger” city – Lethbridge at that time had a population of about 35.000 – than Coleman, the change from city life in Copenhagen, Denmark with a population of 1 million was HUGE.

Honestly, if it was not for our great desire of adopting a native boy, I could have gone back to Denmark any time. Canada freaked me out. nevertheless, we stayed, and Linda liked her school:

This is a photo of the School Linda went to. The three kid are her triplets: Sarah, Catie and Jarom.

We wanted to enroll her in dancing on roller-skates as she had done in Denmark, but could not find any place for her, so instead she started “ice skating”.

Eventually after we moved to British Columbia, Linda became a pro in Ice skating.

DAIRY QUEEN AND A&W SAVED OUR SANITY.

We found out where “Dairy Queen” was on 13^th Ave N. and that was one of Linda’s favorite things to do in Lethbridge.  At that time Dairy Queen had an advertising that said, “LET’S LIVE A LITTLE, COME TO DAIRY QUEEN”. 

Well, Linda often asked if “we could go and live a little”, so we walked up 5^th Ave N to 13^th street to the Dairy Queen and had a 10-cent cone.  We did not feel we could afford the 29 cent “Banana Split”.

A&W

Of course, we also become very familiar with A&W. (McDonald did not exist at that time)

Everybody owned these galloon bottles and went to A&W to get them filled up with root beer.(Some people made their own rootbeer at home).

You would just drive up the A&W and a girl or boy would come out to the car and serve your food on a tray that they hung on the car.  Wow.  We were impressed.

We were also impressed by all the snassy vehicles (that we could not afford)

Our friends ERIKA AND KARL SOMMERFELDT

I strongly believe that if it was not for the help of Karl and Erika Sommerfeldt “who happened to live just a few doors down from us”, I would not emotionally have survived. Karl and Erika and their two kids Michael and Christine became our “emotional saviors”. Karl and Erika for Keld and I and Michael for Linda.  They became “best friends” and Michael helped Linda learn English, even though he was a little guy.

Erika and I would do a lot of things together and she taught me “The Canadian way of life”. She helped us fill out papers to adopt our baby boy whom we picked up in Calgary in June 1967.

Erika was teaching me “The Canadian way of life: F. ex. I washed and ironed Harly’s diapers. One day Erika stopped by and saw me ironing the diapers. She looked at me in shock and said “What are you doing”. I am ironing.  Her respond was. “No, no you are in Canada now”.  “We do not iron diapers and pillow cases and sheets”. Well, that was the end of me ironing all Harly’ diapers, shirts etc.

Erika was born in Denmark, raised in Germany. Karl went on a mission to Germany and found his sweetheart there.

Here is an old photo of Christine Karl and Erika’s daughter.  I was visiting them.  At that time, I lived in Vernon, BC

The bond that was between the Sommerfeldts and the Neumann Johansens became very strong.  We were more like family than “just neighbors”.

I will always be eternal grateful for what they did for us. We became “friends for life”.  Here is a photo of Christine and me that I took on a later visit to “The Sommerfeldts” in Lethbridge.

LINDA LOVED HER LITTLE BROTHER HARLY SO MUCH

Linda was so proud of her little baby brother.  She brought him to school for “show and tell”.

Linda in Lethbridge 1967

BACK IN LETHBRIDGE 2018

I moved back to Lethbridge 30 November 2018.

Photo of 1818 5^th Ave as it looks now. It looks like nobody live there.  It is falling apart.

When we moved to Canada there was not much population in the South of Lethbridge, but now Lethbridge has grown to a city of 120.000 people and the South has not only developed a lot, but many of the major businesses are in the South.

It is good to be back in Lethbridge. I am happy to be in the same household as Linda’s son Joshua and his wife Tammy.

Vibeke Lindhardt

6 May 2019

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