John T. M. and Harry

An excerpt on immigration to Canada in 1920, taken from John Leyten’s memoirs
“A present of my past to your future”
Written 1975-7

There were some people, relatives to my Dad, and they came over from Canada for a visit. They talked all about Canada, how good it was there and that there were lots of people in Canada from Holland and they were all doing so well. Even the C.P.R. sent people over to the old countries and they were pretty good talkers and they organized meetings and lectures about what a wonderful country that Canada was. They almost made people believe that it was a heaven on earth but of course they never mentioned that people had to work there, too, if they were going to have something to eat. All the C.P.R. was interested in was to get the money when they arrived here. They sure were doing their best to sell them some land that nobody else wanted.

This couple that came from Canada, and especially the woman, couldn’t talk enough about the country. The way she talked, everybody had money. That is why they came for a trip. There was lots of money. I remember some people that came that gave these lectures, they thought that would be the life. But they didn’t stay here very long, a year or so and they headed back to Holland again and if they had caught up with those fellows who got paid by the C.P.R. for making out that this was a promised land, I guess there would have been some trouble.

Anyway, my Dad, he fell for it, I guess he said there was no future for young people in Holland, and even this woman’s sister and her husband couldn’t leave fast enough to see that wonderful land. So this couple and my Dad got everything in shape and got their passports so they were going to sail across the ocean as soon as possible. That day finally came and having sold everything that they couldn’t take along and having their steamship tickets and railroad tickets to take them all the way to Calgary, Alberta, North America. So on the appointed day, we went to Antwerp, Belgium, where this big steamship was waiting to take on the passengers for America. There were doctors there to inspect the people before they boarded the ship.

When our turn came to go in the doctor’s office, they didn’t want Harry to board the ship. The reason was that Harry used to have epileptic fits, when he was younger at the time we left the old country, he was seventeen years old and had quite a few operations and I remember the last operation he had, they must have done some operation on the brain. I bet you can still see the marks to this day where they operated on him and since then he didn’t have any more fits, that was at least two or three years before we left Holland.

There were some people that told my Dad that if he had handed the doctor some money, then everything would have been all right. Anyway, Harry couldn’t get on the boat and when my turn came, he turned me down, too. I don’t know why because I was healthy as a young pig, but I thought later on they did this as Harry wouldn’t be able to look after himself and being in a totally strange country, I guess they turned me down so I could be more or less company for him.

I don’t know who made the arrangements, but we stayed in some home for about two weeks. We used to go to the seaport every day to look at all the ships, we didn’t have any money to spend, it was a bit city, this seaport, by the name of Antwerp in Belgium, and we walked the streets but not too far away from where we stayed.

It must have been two weeks after the rest of the family went on that boat and one morning a man from the steamship company came to see us and told us to be at the port some time in the afternoon as we were going to America. As we didn’t have anything to get ready – all the clothes we had we were wearing – so we were sure to the be at the dock on time and got on the boat and I still recall that it was what looked like a real old big boat with the funny name of Grampian. At last, we were on the way, they told us which cabin was ours so sailing along we went. The boat stopped at Liverpool to unload some stuff and take the additional passengers. It must have taken the better part of the day and once again we were sailing. The first day on the boat wasn’t too bad, they rang the bell for mealtimes, we went down to the dining room and got a seat. There must have been 40 or 50 people at each table, but I remember the meal wasn’t what we expected or had been used to. Sleeping was no trouble at all, as the boat was rocking gently all the time. The second time we went to eat, it didn’t taste any better than the first time so we didn’t eat very much. After that, when we heard the bell for mealtime, we were on deck and some places on deck they had some kind of skylight. It was like a screen, but made out of wood and hand square holes in it about two inches square. So we used to lie on that, and we could see what was on the table and not many days we went down to eat. But the farther out to sea we went, the rougher the sea became, and I am pretty sure at times the waves must have been eight or ten feet high and it was sure rocking the boat. After a few days like that and not eating we were getting somewhat hungry. But what really made it worse was that there was not one person that we could talk to. There must have been mostly Czech. or Hungarian or most people from that part of Europe. If there had been Dutch, Belgian or French people on the boat, at least we could have said or asked something, but there was no one on the boat we could talk to.

There was one person on the boat. He was dressed like the other passengers, and he usually was spitting over this shoulder. He was the interpreter and spoke quite a few different languages, but he couldn’t make us understand anything either.

What really got us was to see all those people lying on the deck or leaning over the rails and throwing up and doing a lot of moaning. We didn’t get that way as we didn’t eat, but finally we got so darn hungry that we went down to the dining room when the bell rang, we didn’t even go and have a look what was on the table, we just went down and got a place to sit and eat. It wasn’t very good, but hungry as we were, we weren’t quite so fussy anymore. But it wasn’t very long and we really got seasick, but luckily it was only the last couple of hours. I am pretty sure they didn’t lose any money on us for all we ate, maybe four meals if you call it that way; that wasn’t too much for being on a boat for eleven days.

The passengers seemed to wear mostly work clothes when they were on the boat, but when we got close to Montreal, maybe a few hours before we landed, they all had changed their clothes. They wore their best dresses and suits you wouldn’t think that they were the same people.

Of course, before we left the boat, we had no idea what was going to happen to us next.

When everybody left the boat, of course we went along with them and before you went through the gate, everybody had some paper in their hand, maybe what their name was, or where they were going. When we got to the gate, I showed the paper that I had and where we were headed for, and one fellow motioned for us to follow him.

It was quite a great big building, and we walked quite a while until he opened a door, and pushed us through there. He sat down behind a desk and started to ask us some questions. We could talk French at school but the French that the Montreal Frenchman spoke seemed a different language, but somehow he made us understand that we would be there for two weeks, but I couldn’t make out why. But it was a good place, all kinds of funny French speaking, but the eating was good and we really enjoyed it, even when they put too much pepper on the fried eggs.

That two weeks seemed to pass fairly fast with lots to eat, good place to sleep and some place to take a wash. I thought Canada was all right. When our time as up, he explained to us that he was taking us to the train depot that would take us to Alberta and then he gave us some money. I don’t know how much, that Dad left for us there, so we didn’t know what to do; we never had money. But I remember this much: when we bought something, we couldn’t understand how much they wanted. I put out my hand with a bunch of silver and held it open. But those bloody Frenchmen—they took money so long as I had my hand open. I learned pretty quick that whenever we bought something I didn’t hold my hand open anymore. I just gave them one coin at a time. Anyway, we finally went on board for the Wild West, hoping they put us on the right train. It wasn’t too bad on the train, as we could pull out the seats and kind of make a bed out of it so we could go to sleep and it sure was no trouble to sleep. Of course, during the day, we looked through the windows all day long and on those little farms sometimes you could see a couple of cows hitched to a two-wheel cart or you could see a cow and a horse in front of the cart. When we came through Ontario, there sure wasn’t much scenery, all day long you would be looking at water; if it wasn’t water, it was rocks.

Not having been in trains very much, we didn’t know about dining cars we did the next best thing—didn’t eat. Harry and I were sitting on one seat and across the alley from us there was a couple of ladies, and I suppose they thought it was funny as they had never seen us eat anything. So they started to eat. They had sandwiches with them, and they gave us each a sandwich and did it taste good, and they were going to Vancouver, that didn’t mean anything to us, as we didn’t know where that was. After a couple of days or so on the train, we were hungry again and the train stopped in Moose Jaw station. I told Harry that I was going to get some bread or something. I didn’t know what you could buy at a railroad station. Anyway, I got off the train, went in the station, looked for something to eat, but couldn’t see anything. The train started off again and I sure had to hurry to get on that train again as it was moving already. Well, I did get back in the train, but didn’t get anything to eat. We were on our way to Calgary. I don’t know but the train must have stopped some where along the road but you can be sure I didn’t try to buy any more bread at the station if and when the train stopped.

We finally arrived at Calgary sometime before noon. Here we were, we didn’t know anybody there, we didn’t know who was coming after us and we didn’t even know where to go in an awful fix but we didn’t worry. We finally went out on the street, Nineth Avenue, and went to see what we could see. There were a lot of people on the street, going some place I guess, but one thing that struck us funny was that people out there walking, they seemed to light their matches by scratching on a post or something. We couldn’t understand that, as the matches that we had in the old country were always carried in a match box, and you had to strike the match on the match box to get it to light. Here people lighted their matches scratching them at anything.

So we decided to go and see what was on the poles to make a match light. We crossed the street and looked at a couple of posts but there was nothing there and it wasn’t very long before we saw people light their matches by just rubbing the match on their pants and light them that way. I never looked for anyone to pick us up so we just walked that one block on Nineth Avenue between Centre and First Street East and the bad part of it was that we were out of cigarettes so we had to do something about that. I told Harry to stay on the corner while I went to see where I could get some cigarettes. I told him to stay there until I returned for I sure didn’t want him to be gone when I got back.

So I started to walk on Nineth Avenue going east and I couldn’t find any place to buy cigarettes so I kept on walking, going east and after going for a few blocks, I saw a sign on some building for Millbank cigarettes. I knew that when I saw the sign we were going to have cigarettes, as they had the same sign in the old country. I started to walk a little faster and finally got to the place but it sure didn’t look like much of a place, just a little one storey building. I didn’t care about the building. I wanted to smoke.

Got up on the step and opened the door, walked inside, but sure was surprised to see a big negress behind the little counter. I just said cigarettes and a girl about 10 or 20 years old came out through another door and she sure was not wearing many clothes. This negress looked over the counter at my short pants and said no. I left that place and walked back to where Harry was and no cigarettes. At that time, I didn’t know what kind of place I got into but in time I heard people talk about those places. So all we could do was walk around a little bit and wait for someone to pick us up.

It must have been about six o’clock in the evening when somebody walked up to us and asked who we were.

That fellow’s name was Joe Verbunt and he was on the same boat that our parents were on. They knew each other very well and his sister was sister to that woman who came to see my Dad when she was in Holland for a holiday from Canada and told my Dad all about Canada. Joe asked us if we were hungry and told him that we would like to have something to eat. So he took us back to the CPR station and there was a restaurant so we went in and he ordered something to eat for us and himself. I don’t know what it was anymore, didn’t care less as long as there was something for us to eat. He must have been eating regularly because he didn’t finish his bun; we cleaned our plate and then I grabbed his bun, too, and he sure got mad.

We waited for some time and finally a man came up to our table and talked to Joe in Dutch. This man was Joe’s brother-in-law, he was Joe’s wife’s brother. He told us that he was taking us home. My Dad was working for him and the family was living in one of his houses on the Bow River.

Off we started to Gladys’ Ridge where he farmed and he drove a model-T. The first car we ever rode in. It was late when we got to his place and dark and he showed us where we could sleep, but we had to wash first as it was a long time ago that we had a wash. Never had a chance to wash on the train. We slept good.