Mom & Dad immigrated to Canada in July of 1952, when Antoon was just a few months old. They came over by ship and then by train across Canada to Vancouver. When they were going to board the train they had Antoon in a basket with a top (that closed over him) . A young black man was the porter and was stowing their luggage on the baggage car and wanted to take the basket too!
Poor mom & dad could barely speak English! Mom had to open the basket to show what was in it before he understood why they didn't want the basket in the baggage car. And the poor porter was so apologetic (and embarrassed, I'm sure).
Wouldn't that have been a hoot to have seen his face when he saw the baby in the basket, though!
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When they moved into their first house in Vancouver, they had to wait a week or two for all their furniture and things to arrive from the Netherlands. So for the first little while mom had to hang up bedsheets for curtains.
None of the nearby neighbours would have anything to do with them, thinking they were hippies.
Then finally the big crates with all their belongs arrive & mom put up the lovely lace curtains she had... then she started getting visits from the neighbours.
How sad that the neighbours were so stuck up! And I hope, if new neighbours ever move in around me, that I will go to say hi right away without passing judgement before I've even met the people!
Pandemic year of Covid-19 2020
3 years ago
I remember that Mum also said they had to cook their dinner outside over a fire. At least, I think that's what she said. Maybe you could ask Dad. And I think the neighbours noticed that when they first moved in, they had no furniture at all, and then when they saw the boxes arrive they changed their minds. We had a bed sheet hanging in our dining room window in our first house we bought in 1987. We had it there for a whole year, but our neighbours would never, ever have noticed such a thing, or even cared. People are funny!
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