Bruno and Rosanna Bellissimo

This brick is in memory of my parents, Bruno and Rosanna Bellissimo, to show how grateful I am that they left their homeland to bring their family to Canada so that we could have a better life.

This is my story:

Together with my mother and two brothers, we left the little town of Vallelonga, Italy in April 1953. My father had immigrated to Canada four years earlier to begin working in order to save money to pay for our trip and to buy a house. It took us four hours, by car, to get to the city of Naples where we boarded the ship "Conte Biancamano".

I will never forget the look on my mother's face when she had to say good-bye to her mother because she knew deep in her heart that she would never see her again. She also left her younger sister, aged 22 sick in bed; her sister then passed away one month after we arrived in Canada. My grandmother passed away in 1959. My mother went back to Italy to visit in 1967. I have never been back. One day I hope to go and see the little town where I was born.

The "Conte Biancamano" was an enormous ship. I was nine years old and that big ship was overwhelming. When my mother took me to the lavatory and I heard the toilet flush for the first time, I got a bit scared. We had no inside plumbing in Italy: we used chamber pots. My younger brother got sick on the ship and my mother had to stay with him in the ship's hospital for a few days. I was left alone to go to the dining room for my meals and I got lost. I was very scared. Although the cabin on the ship was to be just for the four of us we had to share it with another woman and her young daughter. When we told my father, he was very angry because he had reserved the cabin just for us.

We arrived in at Pier 21 in Halifax on May 9th, 1953 and from there we took the train to Toronto. The train ride to Toronto was not very pleasant; there were too many people crowded in the train, much like a cattle train, and I remember that we had little food. Two days later we arrived in Toronto's Union Station. My father was waiting for us. He picked me up and said how much I had grown since he last saw me.

September of that year I started school at Essex Street Public School. During the summer I had picked up a little bit of English but it wasn't good enough to start in grade 4 where I was supposed to be. They put me back to grade 2 which worked out well because I was very small for my age and I fit right in. After completing grade 8, I took a commercial course. When I graduated I started to work as a secretary for Simpson-Sears Ltd. In 1965, I married Leo Kleinas. We have two daughters and three grandsons.

GOD BLESS CANADA!

Elisa Bellissimo-Kleinas