Chapter 6

By and by we got to Revelstoke where I changed train for Vancouver but I must have fallen asleep because I don’t remember that part very well. It was an overnight trip.
   I do not remember what day of the week I got to Vancouver but it was early morning and I headed straight for the Immigration office.
   In the waiting room I struck up a conversation with a big dark haired fellow who turned out to be a Swede, what luck, someone to talk to without having to resort to all sorts of gesticulations and strange sounds coming out of my mouth.
  The guys name was John Gudmundsson; he was an electrical engineer by profession but like me didn’t speak any English. He was at least 6 foot 4” and he was to be named “den långe” (the long one) for as long as we remained as friends and it was until we moved away to 100 Mile House six years later and he got a job with a logging company on Vancouver Island./ We decided to wait for each other after the meeting and interviews with the Immigration  officer(s) and perhaps have a coffee and get to know each other.
   At the Immigration office I was handed another piece of paper with a name for a restaurant and the name of the manager; the restaurant was “White Lunch” the manager Mr. Faddersen, Danish decent. He took a look at my credentials, (résumé’s etc) decided I was too qualified to work at his establishment Where the Pay was only $18.00 per week, and according to him only Chinese would work for that kind of money. He directed me to go to Hotel Georgia and see Mr.Munger, the Chef at the hotel where I had my first meal after landing in Vancouver.
   My new friend John, thought I could help him and show him around because I was an ”old-timer” by now, having  been in Canada all of two weeks.
   The first thing we did was to find a place to call “home”, got a newspaper and search for “rooms to rent” there were something called “house keeping” rooms and we looked in to this and found out they were rooms with a hotplate where one could cook small meals and have a coffee pot. We also started to walk around down town in areas that had houses with signs in the windows saying “rooms to rent’ or “rooms to let” neither one of us knew the difference between “let” or “rent” but we learned. It sounded good so we found one near downtown on “Melville Street” for $8.00 a week which would bee $ 4.00 each. It was a start. This room ended up being only two and a half blocks from the hotel “Georgia”.
(This looks a little cozier than it was in reality but that is the way it looked, the trains I mean. The one I almost missed.)

   Well I did land a job at the “Hotel Georgia” at .73 cents an hour, a nickel (5 cents) more for split shifts. I was to be assistant fry cook and I was supposed to work with a fellow from Switzerland by the name of Ernie Lou and another from Theckoslovakia Tony Swicky, a few polish cooks a couple of Dutch cooks, some were ladies and worked in the “pantry”, it was all very new to me. One thing I remember vividly was the chef (Artur Munger) telling me; the quicker you learn English the quicker you will be getting better paying jobs. Did I ever take that advice to heed? Every spare moment I had was trying to learn more and better English, without any dictionary for help it had its moments. I learned from comic books, pocket novels street signs. I had some help from the people I worked with, with all these nationalities and having been exposed to them all in Sweden during the war years, I had managed to pick up a lot of different language skills, and they came in handy now.
  My new friend John (“Den Långe”) had more difficulties than I learning English and it made it hard for him finding work. He was very well educated, having a Degree in electrical engineering and being in charge of installing Electric Power Stations in northern Sweden I was surprised that he had so much difficulty. He got odd jobs as drywall helper and laborer and such but found it impossible to get a job even as an ordinary “house electrician”.  It had perhaps something to do with the union, it was a so called “closed shop” union, ( I am not sure what that really means) it was hard to be accepted, partly because he was “over qualified”, so he was told. They wanted “money under the table” and he had none. He survived but barely. Our living together worked out fine, we got along well even though he was my senior by12 years and he was educated and I was not. He lived on boiled potatoes and bacon, I ate at work except on my day off, and then I didn’t eat at all. Saving my money was of utmost importance, partly to pay back $27.00 per month to the Canadian government for the tickets to Canada and partly to send to Sweden so Mariana and the kids could pay for their tickets to come and join me.
  At 73 cents an hour one doesn’t save an awful lot, believe me. There were times thing got pretty tough and a good thing it was that I had my meals at work, except on my day off and as I said before I learned not to eat on my days off but it worked out, I am still here. My friend John ate I think once a day, (Potatoes and bacon) and we did have coffee twice a day. He still had not found work after couple of weeks and started to get a bit concerned as he didn’t want to use his savings. Unlike me he arrived with a couple of hundred dollars to see him through. He was very frugal. We rolled our own cigarettes, no movies or bars or “pubs”. Once we went to a place where there was dances and mostly out of curiosity. It was I think on the first day in Vancouver a rather warm evening, we were walking on Robson Street near the court house when we sort of stumbled on a place that had something of the word “Palace” in it and upstairs was a dance going on. There we happened on a fellow, Canadian, who was standing outside smoking a cigarette and he struck up a conversation and wondered where we came from and when we had arrived. He also inquired if we had found work, because evidently work was very scarce in those days and the “Canadians” couldn’t figure out why their government went over seas to get a labor force when there were so many people out of work right here. He 
Insisted that he help us get work and was a real agitator, anti-government orator as well as a communist sympathizer.
He asked us to meet with him next day and he would work on our “case”. We never saw him again. He turned out to be a “brake man” for CNR on a freight train. That is really all we found out about him. Just an interesting interlude’. We did attend the “ballroom” dancing upstairs for a while. We also did not meet anyone to speak with other than each other due to language difficulties. Neither of us could afford to spend any money so we called it an early evening and walked back to our “humble” living quarters. We read a lot of papers and comic books in our spare time.
    Occasionally we would go and visit the “Swedish Press”, and once there Mr. Månsson mentioned that there was a Swedish Club in Vancouver and maybe we should go there and find out if my friend could make contacts that may be leading to work. It was located on Hastings and near Commercial Street and Clark Avenue. We walked over that way and on the door was a sign telling us that they had dances every Saturday evening, and that was it. So next Saturday we went to The Swedish Club and it turned out to be rather nice place with a lot of people of all nations, not just Swedes, I think mostly Norwegians and Finns and some Danes. The entrance fee was reasonable and they only served soft drinks and coffee and no food. I think some people brought their own liquor to spike the coffee with. In those days liquor laws were very strict, no bars other than what was called “Beer parlors” where ladies and men had to enter through separate entrances and sit in separate rooms. It changed later, about 4 years later.
   About the third or fourth time we were there we got talking to a young girl who over-heard us speak Swedish and she said: are you Swedish? Answer; yes. Are you? Her answer; no, but my parents are Scandinavians, my mom is Norwegian and my dad is Swedish, come, I will introduce them to you, they are sitting right over there and pointed. Well, that was it; we had met our first local friends. The girls name was Norma, mother was Hildur and Dad was Gus and their last name Eriksson and a close friend to them was Joe.
   This family was to become one of our closest friends in Canada. At least for as long as we remained in Vancouver. Wonderful people! In due time I was to cater to her wedding to a fellow named Joe Scott. Christina ended up staying with them when Mariana was in the hospital.
   As time went we started to feel a bit crowded and John would like to have better “cooking facilities” so we started to look for more adequate living quarters.
   We took long walks but concentrated on areas that would be within walking distance to work, at least for me.
We ended up finding a place on Harwood Street in the “west-end” of Vancouver, jokingly called “Knob hill”, where all the rich people live. We rented a suite consisting of two rooms and a small kitchenette on the second floor of a very old and large private home for I think was $12.00 a week. It took me about 20 minutes to walk to work, I don’t remember what kind of public transportation there was at that time if there where any on Burrard Street at all, because that is the nearest street that would lead straight down to Georgia and Howe streets.  I walked past St. Paul’s Hospital and it turned out to be the first medical establishment I was to encounter in Canada. More about that later. The place we rented was the place we had until Mariana and the kids arrived. There was a Danish family renting across the hall from us, a couple and a young son, I don’t remember their name at the moment but I think it was Hansen, the man was a furniture “restorer” and carpenter, I think his name was Einar and her name was something like “Bende”(?), they later became  very good friends who we saw a lot of in the coming years.
    My work at the Hotel Georgia progressed reasonably well, I still had to learn English and get familiar with Canadian food and the methods of cooking it .Lot of it seemed strange at first. It was a very routine job and apparently I must have done reasonably well because I got promoted after about 6 or 7 months to “roast cook” at $1.13 per hour (big money for me). Ernie Lou got “laid off”, He had a drinking problem, so I got his job. But that was a month or two after Christmas 1952. One other fellow that I worked with there was John Cependa, who was also roast cook but on the opposite shift, he was attending university to become a lawyer.( he ended up to become a real estate salesman)( right about here I will stop and interject, digress that is)
/ Before I left Sweden to Immigrate to Canada, one of the last things I did was to go with my brother Bengt to Copenhagen and visit his job and got introduced to his boss
The company was the inventor of the very first “Photo-copying” machine in the world. Here is the clincher, Bengt had told them I was to leave for Canada the following day and they wanted for me to take with me brochures and descriptions and samples of what the units could do. They had one “machine” sitting in the customs in Montreal waiting to be used as a promotion tool and demonstrator, it had been brought there by someone who defected to the states and had no-one replacing him, so they asked me if I would take it on. It would cost $3000.00 to get it out of the customs and use it to gather potential customers and take orders for it. They apparently made three different sizes and this one was the smallest, about the size of a large suitcase or a bit bigger than a computer tower. As I had no funds or access to any they and I were hoping I could round up potential buyers willing to put a deposit and thus get the one in Montreal released. Well, it was not to be, everyone I spoke to, and they were many, wanted to see one first.
   In my attempt to get things going and round up investors I needed contacts but my English was still not good enough and my knowledge of “business” even less. I happened to discuss it with this fellow John Cependa, he happened to be German and rather well educated so I figured it wouldn’t hurt to get someone else’s opinion. Well it turned out that behind my back he had contacted the company in Copenhagen and tried to get all of the business for him selves. According to Bengt, My Brother, the company saw through the “scam” and having not heard anything positive from me they contacted a firm in Stockholm who had an office in the states in a business similar in nature, it was one of the main supplier of electronic paraphernalia, (The name of that company was “Xerox”) They eventually got sole rights to all sales in North America. They had a well known name and lots of money and a big network.
So I lost out on a sure thing that could have made me a millionaire had I had the “wherewithal” to continue. Again, “Ce LaVie”
Here ends the “digression”./
   Life at this point started to get a bit “hum-drum”, I kept on learning English best way I could. My friend John got a girlfriend who he never introduced, I have a vague recollection seeing them together once but apparently it was a “loose” relationship at this point. He did get some sort of work in the building trade, always part time but steady enough to support himself without any “frills”. He and I visited the Eriksson’s once in a while and we spent a lot of time on the beach at English Bay and Stanley Park. I remember falling asleep and get burned once on the beach.
After that I made sure it wouldn’t happen the second time.
It turned out to be a very hot summer that year, no rain from April ‘till October. But after that it rained steady for three months. It was either feast or famine where the weather was concerned. Time went I worked everyday and began to count the hours, never mind the day until my family was to join me and we could begin to live a normal life.
   I did a lot of letter writing, about one a day or one every other day. It was the cheapest past time entertainment I could think of. Of course once in a while there would be free entertainment at the “Malkin Bowl”, an out door stage in Stanley Park and we would head down there if I happened to have time off. There would be excellent entertainment by up and coming artists, vocal and instrumental. Some that would become world class, like Elvis Presley.
   It started to get towards fall (autumn that is) and it was time I start looking for housing to bring my family to when they arrive, they were due November 24/51 in Halifax, NS on s/s Stavangerfiord  and another 5 days  later in Vancouver. It was getting closer to the time and I had hoped to have a decent place for them but it seemed hopeless because it was expensive. I figured it would be alright once they had arrived and I wouldn’t have to send money over to them but right now I would have to settle for “cheap”. I found a place on Broadway and McDonald, little off the “beaten track”. What I found was two rooms with no kitchen, only a hotplate& share bathroom with the owner who lived downstairs, there was no furniture other than one large (double) bed with a horrible mattress for which I was to pay $30.00 per month. I wasn’t happy but desperate so I paid a deposit. It also meant I would have to take the bus to work everyday and I would have to include that in our cost of living. Well at least we would have a place to sleep when they arrived. By this time in development they would be on the train by now and I had checked the timetable and they were to get in to Vancouver 08.30 (standard time) in the morning  on November  29^th 1951, with the CPR train same as I had come with, except now it was winter, gray and yucky outside. I had requested a DAY OFF that day and it was granted, it was only to wait. I started to get emotional. My workmates were getting almost as excited as I. Ernie Lou offered to come and “help me at the station, with luggage and as he said stop in to the hotel where he and his wife Kay were staying, for a cup of coffee before we find our way to our “new home”, which was a good half hour further on by bus or taxi (which we took).
   Well on the morning of November 29^th  Ernie Lou and I were at the station and Ernie was a great help to me because he arranged for us to be allowed to wait inside on the platform where the train would come to a stop. No other people were allowed this privilege, just us. That’s because Ernie explained to the management that my wife and two small children where arriving from a trip from Europe all by themselves and did not speak any English and most likely would be very tired.
    The train came in and oodles of people were streaming out of it and almost right where we were waiting out came my beautiful wife and my two beautiful children and a porter was unloading their luggage while we tried to hug and kiss and all that. Christina had a cute white fur coat and Roly a Gray absolutely perfect overcoat and a cap that made him look like a prince I felt so proud There was one “glitch” to it all; Christina had her face all bandaged up. In all this confusion and excitement I almost forgot to introduce Ernie. And about Christina’s face being bandaged I had to be patient, because we had to get off the platform, out of the station, in to a taxi and head for the Hotel where Ernie and Kay lived, it was what is called a “residential” hotel where long term renters live. They had no children of their own so it was to them the simplest form of living accommodation. We were offered a cup of coffee and the kids got some hot cocoa
And we just sat around for a short while and Mariana explained what had happened to Christina’s face,leg and arm, which was also bandaged. It was a very disturbing tale she had to tell us. It upset us very much, and the story about that is as follows: While en route on the Norwegian ship Stavangerfjord in mid-Atlantic it was somewhat rough seas and passengers and crew were being entertained by the ships orchestra in the main lounge when a cook carrying two pails of hot tomato soup from the kitchen to the dining area and walked across the dance floor were some smaller children were sitting close to the stage listening to the music
When a large wave caused the cook to loose his balance and the two buckets of hot tomato soup went flying and upturned over the children who got all that hot soup over them. Needless to say there was chaos in the lounge with all that steam that no-one could see through, children screaming and people running around trying to find out what happened. Apparently some man grabbed Christina and ripped her dress off and then she was hustled to the medical centre on board where she and another girl where tended to by the medical officer, a doctor .she was severely burned by the soup on her face arms and leg, and it took several years before all the scarring healed. It wasn’t pretty.
   Well it took a while to tell us about the accident and we were anxious to get “home” , in lieu of a better word. It was two rooms and nothing else other than a double bed with only a mattress and a pillow. The taxi took us there  and we started to hug and kiss to get re-aquainted , then the basic unpacking. Everyone was very tired. The “land-lord ”a lady, was very “ welcoming” and seemed interested in my family,