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
We left Copenhagen on the Polish ship Batory November 25th
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.
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
