Frank Franz Danner

Alumni Type: Immigrant
Country of Origin: Germany
Ship Name: Seven Seas, Europe-Canada-line, Bremerhaven to Quebec
Port of Entry:Montreal, Quebec
Date of Arrival: June 25, 1958
Age on Arrival: 20

I am honoured to have my name displayed at the Pier 21 Sobey Wall of Honour sponsored by my three Canadian born children Ursula, Steve and Mark and their families.

Here is my short biography of where I immigrated from and how and why I am here.

I was born towards the end of 1938 in a small village in southern Germany. My parents operated a small farm with their few cows that pulled the wagons, the plow and provided us milk at the end of the day. We lived outside the war zone and when food got scarce in 1945 my parents grew all our own food except for salt and pepper. Our loyal cows provided us with milk to make butter and cheese.

I grew up among lots of farm animals, cows and baby cows, cats, rabbits, chicken and their chicks. That’s where, I think, I inherited my overwhelming love for animals.

After my basic education from 1944 to 1952, slightly interrupted by occupying forces, I served as an apprentice to become a skilled tradesman. That is when I got the idea to immigrate to Canada.

In the mid-1950s, Canadians realized the potential of attracting young Europeans to Canada to fill the skilled labour shortage. They filled their skilled labour requirement through immigration as there were no local facilities in place for training. They advertised in the local newspapers overseas and set up more embassies to process interested applicants. And lots of us came in the 1950s and 1960s.

In 1958, I was ready to immigrate to Canada; the boat was the only available and affordable transportation at that time.

I came with the ‘Seven Seas’ together with another roughly 500 new immigrants and we arrived in Halifax, Nova Scotia, at Pier 21 on June 25, 1958 to apply for immigrant status. The Seven Seas had been our home for the last 8 days. It gave us plenty of time to adjust to what we could expect. We moored in Halifax Pier 21 to register our immigrant status and then continued sailing to Montreal, Quebec. There we disembarked to a special train waiting for us to be distributed across Canada.

Immigrants paying their own fare could select their destination; others were assigned to places out west until they were able to repay their debt. I selected Toronto.

I was impressed by the churches having representatives on the boat to help us new immigrants establish contact at our destinations. In my case it was the St. Patrick’s Church at 131 McCaul St in Toronto.

To set foot in a new country might sound challenging, but living ‘room and board’ with your countrymen made the situation a lot easier and at times even adventurous. Adventure was the purpose for me coming here.

With time I got myself a job in the aircraft industry in manufacturing engineering, which satisfied my burning ambition for the rest of my working life. I always believed in lifelong learning and got myself a BA degree in Economics in June 2001.

Once settled, my life really began in Canada. I found my loving spouse Erika and we raised three lovely children, purchased a house and built a cottage together. After 40 years of marriage, the Creator called Erika home. After some time I found and married my lovely wife Marta.

Now that I am here for over 60 years, I realize how great an opportunity I had to establish myself and how every piece of the puzzle slowly fell in its place to having a loving family.

I also realize the contribution we young immigrants made to this country moving forward to today’s harmonious multicultural society.

Frank Danner