Koster

The following is the story of the Koster family. Why and how they came to Canada and how they managed in their new country. The family members are: Bep [real name Berber], our mother, Hans and Kees, the 2 oldest [twins], Walter, Ime Christine Koster-Joost and Irene Klazina Koster-Cudnohufsky.

The original idea was that the 2 oldest boys [twins] would go alone. They wanted to be farmers and if your parents did not own a farm in Holland then it was impossible to acquire one. Kees had heard from the relative of a farmer where he worked in Zeeland, the SW province of Holland, who was visiting from Canada, that there was lots of land there and easy to buy. So that was where they wanted to go.

When they went to The Hague for their medical examination and interview, the Canadian officials decided that Kees should go alone first and find a farmer for Hans who would know about his stuttering. They both stuttered, but Hans was worse. So on May 8, 1953 Kees, at only 18 years of age, sailed on the "Waterman" and arrived at Pier 21 on May 16.

From here on Kees will write his own story.

In those day, when someone emigrated to a faraway country, you never knew if you would ever see them again, so because of that our mother [our parents were separated] and Hans had the idea that we should all go to Canada. At the time Walter was 16 years old, Irene 11 and I 14. We were almost not asked because we were still so young and because we had no idea what to expect, it was more or less an adventure. Only Walter, many years later said he had not wanted to go. He worked as a mechanic in a motorcycle garage in Middelburg where we lived. He loved his work, had his friends and was a member of a soccer club. I was in high school. I loved school and had many friends there. Irene was in public school. All of us were members of the A.J.C. a socialist youth group in which we were very involved and it meant a lot to us.

During the winter of 1953/54 our mother, Hans and Walter took an English course especially for emigrants. I learned English in school and Irene was thought to be too young, although it would have helped her a lot later on.

In Feb. 1954 we all went to The Hague, each with a big brown envelope under our arm with the chest X-ray. The interview and medical examination all went well and so we were set to go. Because we had no money, the Dutch government paid for the ship voyage and $100.00 cash to start our life in Canada. Also they paid Hans 1 week salary and for the wood he needed to make our big case for household goods we were taking with us. When the case was being loaded, on the street in front of the front door, the whole street came to watch. We took the dining room table, 6 chairs, beds, bedding, cooking utensils, clothes, the bookcase and all our books. Irene and I each took our doll, the only childhood toy we later had. Because the case had to go a few days before we left, we went to Amsterdam and stayed with our Aunt and family and our grandmother who lived only a few houses down the street. It was nice to be together for the last time with all the cousins and the rest of the family. A lot of them brought us to the ship in Rotterdam.

We sailed on the "Groote Beer" on March 30, 1954. The first few days onboard were wonderful. We discovered the whole ship and had wonderful meals. The first morning at breakfast we all got half a grapefruit. Nobody knew what it was and when breakfast was finished, on most tables the grapefruits were still there. It was on the 3rd day, while watching a movie in the movie theatre which was a few decks below, that I had to run upstairs and just made the railing. From then on I was seasick and the others followed soon.

We had one cabin for all of us and that is where we stayed for most of the voyage. We had a big storm in the middle of the Atlantic and I remember going on deck. The ship would dive into a wave and climb up the next one. They must have been enormous, because you could not look over the wave when the ship went down, pretty scary and it did not help our seasickness. We had a very nice steward who came every morning to clean up and was always in a good mood.

Then on April 8 we arrived at Pier 21 in Halifax. It was so nice to have solid ground under your feet again. I remember how nice the stevedores were. They talked to us and although we could not understand most of it, it all sounded very friendly. In my memory, Pier 21 was a big, rather grubby hall with lots of benches for people to sit on while waiting for their turn with the immigration people.

Afterwards we went to find a store where we could buy some food for the train trip. The train left in the evening. It would take us 2 nights and 1 day to go to Oshawa in Ontario. The train trip was somewhat cramped. We only had 4 seats during the night, because we gave up one for one of the very small children of people behind us. They were a very nice family and made cozy beds for the 2 little ones on the benches. Walter even slept in the baggage compartment above our head. We arrived in Oshawa very early in the morning at a totally deserted train station. Kees and his friend Alydus arrived soon and took us to our first house in Canada. It was a farmhouse 2 km outside of Bowmanville. Alydus and his wife Christine had one half of the house and we the other. There was a small hand pump over a sink in the kitchen, but no drain, so the water was thrown outside which, in winter became like an ice rink. The outhouse was approximately 50 metres from the house. Shortly after we arrived there was a big storm and the next morning we couldn't find it again. It had blown away. I don't remember whether it was rescued or whatever we did after that. About a week later our big case arrived and we felt more at home after we had our own things around us again.

I hope Hans too will write his own story, because I will mainly focus on our mother, who died on June 10, 2005 at age 96, Walter who died on Feb. 5 2006, age 68 and Irene who died on Jan. 23, 2007. They cannot write their own story anymore, because I am only writing this in 2011.

Walter had to work with Alydus on the farm which was owned by the farmer who lived ½ km up the road. He hated it, but at least he could drive a small tractor to plough with. Irene and I often rode with him after school. Walter was a very social person and hated to be alone all day on a field, but he managed, at least for a while.

Irene and I went up the road to a one room schoolhouse. The teacher there had no clue what to do with us. She gave us a grade one reader and just left us alone. In September. I went to high school in Bowmanville, but Irene went back to the school up the road. Only in 2005 did she tell us her story. She had thought that the children at school would be interested in her story, but when she said something in English which was not correct, they called her a stupid Dutchman, after which for the next 2 years she just didn't talk when in school and the teachers just left her alone.

My time at high school was also not very successful. At the time there was no help for immigrant children. No explanation as to how the school worked and no help with English. I remember coming to school one day and we had a science test. Nobody had told me and of course I totally failed, but even after that no teacher took the effort to help. Because of all this Walter, Irene and I really missed our life in Holland. We, as a family had a real disadvantage. Most Dutch people belonged to a Dutch church where they met other Dutch people and were part of a like-minded and social group. We did not belong to a church and were sort of off on our own. Hans and Kees in the meantime had become members of the Mennonite church. It gave them a focus, but left us even more alone.

Because Hans and Kees worked on a farm near Stouffville, our mother asked them to find a house closer to them so that we would be more altogether. They found a house with a few barns and some land in Altona, about 3 km outside Stouffville on a gravel road. They had only seen the barns where they would be able to keep pigs and land to grow potatoes, etc. There was again a one room schoolhouse right next to our house and a small convenience store just up the road. Irene went to the school and our mother cleaned in the store, but no thought was given to Walter and my work. We had no car so it was difficult to get into town. Walter bought a motorcycle and started work in an auto garage which was much more to his liking.

By that time all I wanted was to go back to Holland but I started to work for a short time in the household in Toronto. I had every second weekend off and could drive back and forth with a neighbour of ours. Then I worked in an atelier in Stouffville. We sewed blouses and I earned 28 cents for each blouse. A good week would make me $20.00, but for that I really had to work and they had to be done absolutely perfect. I was only 15 years old, but had to say I was 16, because that was the age you could start working. The atmosphere of the place was not nice, but I learned a lot. I had to walk back and forth from Altona to town. Sometimes someone would give me a ride, but not very often.

Walter was offered a mechanic apprenticeship in the garage, which of course was wonderful. The not so wonderful thing was that his salary was instantly cut in half, but he really liked it there and he started to learn something.

Then the next summer we all decided that we wanted to live in town. That made all our lives a lot easier. We first lived in an awful apartment, part of an old hotel. One bathroom for all the tenants on the whole floor. Then we moved to a nice house. It was close to town and Irene's school. It was for the first time a proper school. She had a nice young teacher and suddenly she was fluent in English, even at one point the best in her class. She was on the baseball team and also wanted to play hockey, but in those days girls were not allowed to play hockey, only figure skating and she did not want to do that.

At 2 occasions she had a difference of opinion with her teacher. First, for whatever she had done, she had to hold out her hand to be strapped. She refused. It was something totally unknown in Holland and to her it felt almost medieval. The second time was that the teacher had to leave the classroom for a while and put her in charge of writing names on the blackboard of children who misbehaved. When he came back there were no names on the board and she told him that she would not tell on her classmates. Irene and our mother had a meeting with the teacher and afterwards he changed rules in his classroom. He had just never given it any thought.

After a while I started to work in the bank in town. There were no computers at the time and everything was done manually. I did all the entries of the day before, deposits and withdrawals. Every customer had a card on which the entries were posted. I also did all the other regular office work, filing, typing letters, etc. We were 4 people in all. The manager, 2 tellers [a young man and woman] and myself. I liked the work and learned a lot. Being by far the youngest [17] there was nothing to connect me with the others.

In Stouffville there were quite a few other Dutch families with whom we had a lot of contact. Walter even started a soccer team for adults and one for boys, who he trained.

Even though Stoufville was better than before, all Irene and I wanted was going back to Holland. So when in April 1957 I had saved enough for Irene and mine ship voyage, I quit my job and sailed back on the "Seven Seas" from Montreal. Irene was to come later. On the trip back I was not seasick at all, but also I took a gravol every morning, which we didn't have on the voyage to Canada.

When we arrived in Rotterdam Mientje, my best friend with whom I would live, and Corrie were there to pick me up and we went by train to Middelburg. It was one of the happiest days of my life. Three days after I arrived I started work at the Amsterdamse Bank, which was a real stroke of luck. A few months later Irene came and stayed with a girlfriend whose parents had a bakery.

On the second floor of Mientje's house was an apartment which was empty. A few young couples had looked at it, but did not want it, but we did. There was no bathroom, toilet in the living room and no kitchen, just a sink, tap and gas connection in the little hallway where you came up the stairs. There were 2 rooms. We thought it was perfect. So we rented it [6 guilders a week] and Irene and I lived there very comfortably.

In the meantime Hans and Kees got married to Mennonite girls. Our mother thought that we girls now needed her more so she came back to Holland and now the aptartment became more like a home.

Walter lived with Kees and Ella and finished his mechanic license. The winter of 1958 he came for a visit, went skiing in Germany, together with Irene and there met Christa who would become his wife.

After Irene, Ineke [our girlfriend] and mine 3 months bicycle trip to an international camp in Vienna, Irene and I started our nursing training in the hospital in Middelburg. It was hard work but we loved it.

As much as we loved to be back in Holland and having our new bicycles to get around on, there is a saying that "you can't go home again". Maybe if we had lived in a big city like Amsterdam it would have been different. Middelburg was rather narrow-minded. We had been away, seen different countries, learned a new language and somehow, after a while, we just didn't get along anymore.

We decided to go back to Canada, but only if we would go to Toronto and finish our nursing training there. Our mother was also happy to have everyone together again. So this time we went by plane, it was the first time for all of us. Walter had rented a house in the Italian area of Toronto.

A few days later Irene and I went for an interview to continue our nursing training. We were not accepted because, for religion on the application, we had written "none". Because of that, according to the nurse who interviewed us, we could never be good nurses. We would have loved to take the next plane back to Holland.

Irene afterwards went to night school and got her LPN that way and later, after she was married in the States her RN. I went to work in a steamship office where I met my husband Paul Gerhard PETER Joost. He was German, born on Aug. 25, 1932 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. From age 3-6 the family lived in Angola, Africa where his father managed a coffee farm. Then when he was 7 and had to go to school, they came back to Hamburg, Germany where he lived until he immigrated to Canada in 1957.

After that, my life changed. We were married on July 1, 1961. The first 3 years we lived in Toronto, then 4 years in Montreal, after that the company [Kerr Steamships] transferred Peter to San Francisco for 2 years and then Vancouver. Those were great opportunities for us.

In Vancouver, on July 28, 1970 our daughter Doris CHRISTINE was born and 2 years later on June 11 our son Paul Gerhard ROBIN. After 15 years, we moved to Mahone Bay, N.S. where we opened a bookstore. That was the nicest thing we had ever done together. After 15 years, we sold it to friends and are now retired. Canada in the end has been good to us, but Europe is still very much a part of us.

Irene met her husband, Walter Cudnohufsky in Toronto. He was an American doing a year practicum in a landscape architecture firm. His father was Polish and his mother Dutch. They married in 1964 after which they moved to Boston where Walt got his master's degree at Harvard. Their first son Craig was born in Holland in 1968 while they were on a trip around the world. Niels, their other son was born 10 months later in Dec. 1968. By then they lived in Amherst, Massachusetts, where Irene lived until she died. She became a R.N. and counsellor. Towards the end, she sometimes said "what if", meaning, what would our life have been like if we had stayed in Holland. We will never know.

After we were back in Canada, Christa came from Germany. She worked as a teller in a bank, which she had also done in Germany. Initially she came to stay, but in the summer of 1961 she and Walter decided to go back to Germany. Walter, in the meantime had his mechanic license and although he didn't speak German very well, he managed to get his Master diploma in Germany. They first lived in Springe, a small town south of Hannover where the children were born. Then they moved to Wehen, close to Wiesbaden where Walter was a manager at the Opel car dealership. Their daughter Irene was born in August 1962 and their son Hardy in December 1964. It was the right decision for both of them to go back to Europe. Walter was very involved in bicycle racing and touring. It almost became his life. They had a small cottage in Holland, just north of Amsterdam. They spent a lot of time there and all of us have visited many times. For all of us it was a little piece of Holland back in the family. Walter had a good life in Germany and his family and all of us missed him terribly after he died.

In 1964 our father died in Holland and our mother suddenly got a quite substantial pension. This was absolutely wonderful. She did not have to depend on her children to keep her, but could be absolutely independent and had money to travel and give to people or organizations she thought important. She went on a trip to Israel, organized by the old A.J.C. members. There she met a woman who, as a young person had lived in Amsterdam, was also a member of the A.J.C. and was lucky enough to survive the war [she was Jewish] and immigrate to Israel. They became vast friends right up until the end. Our mother went to Israel many times, even lived there for a year and volunteered in a hospital. Walter visited her there and they together toured all of Israel.

Our mother lived with us in Vancouver for years and was wonderful for our children to have an oma so close by who sang Dutch songs with them and they could snuggle into bed with to hear stories about when she and we were young. All the years in Vancouver she volunteered in the Jewish hospital in the city. She became a member of Hadassah and was the only non-Jewish delegate on a trip to Israel to visit different projects they had raised money for.

When we moved to Mahone Bay she stayed in Vancouver. Although Kees and many of his children now lived near Vancouver, in 1990 she decided to move into an apartment at the Dutch Christian Homes in Brampton, Ontario. It was safe; there were people around her in case she needed help. There too she helped feed people in the nursing home which was attached. One of us visited her for a week, or few days, every month. It was always nice to go there. 99% of the people were Dutch and the atmosphere was very nice.

In 2002 she could not live on her own anymore and she got a single room in the nursing home. The only things in the room, not her own was her bed. Everything else was her own furniture. It was like being home. When she became sick, the last 5 months of her life, we were allowed to take care of her, even during the night. Always at least 2 of us were there and sometimes 3. It was one of the best times for all of us and for our mother to be taken care of by her children at the end. We talked and sang together and all of us remembered it as a very special time.

It was the last time we were all together. Life has been good for all of us, only too short for Walter and Irene.

Mrs. Ime Joost