My father had
a stroke and passed away three months after we were married. Unbeknownst
to me, he had been brought by
ambulance to St. Joseph's Hospital, where I was working that day. I was
informed of his admission and hurried to his bedside where he was able to
recognize my familiar face. He recovered somewhat and he remained at the
hospital for a week. As he was preparing to go back home, he took another
stroke and subsequently died. He was only 70 years old.
When I was
getting married 3 months earlier, I told him he should get a new suit to wear. He
had said, "Why, you'll only
bury me in it." And so we did.
Mom and Dad stepping out on the town.
We had the
usual Catholic funeral service with
the visitation for family and friends the evening before the mass and service at the church
the next day. My
dad had been a member of the Polish
church for many, many years, was married there,
and had the children
baptized in the church. Even when he lived in Burlington, he drove
all the way to his Polish church in Hamilton.
The priest
who came from St. Stanislaus Church to say some prayers for the deceased at the
funeral home, did not even introduce himself to my Mom,
my siblings, or me, nor did he offer any
comforting words to us! But as he prepared to leave the room, he made a loud announcement that Mass cards could be purchased in the vestibule.
With that, he left and that
was it! We were all shocked and
disappointed at his lack of sympathy to the immediate family.
I came home
after that and cried and said to John, that I would go to his church,
the United Church from now on. If that is
how a members' family is
treated after belonging to that
church since the 1920's, I didn't want to belong to that kind of church. It seemed that dollars were all they are interested in.
Apparently my brother had the same
feelings because one of his daughters told me "something happened at his
Dad's funeral", and he was
lukewarm towards the church after that.My father had
a stroke and passed away three months after we were married. Unbeknownst
to me, he had been brought by
ambulance to St. Joseph's Hospital, where I was working that day. I was
informed of his admission and hurried to his bedside where he was able to
recognize my familiar face. He recovered somewhat and he remained at the
hospital for a week. As he was preparing to go back home, he took another
stroke and subsequently died. He was only 70 years old.
When I was
getting married 3 months earlier, I told him he should get a new suit to wear. He
had said, "Why, you'll only
bury me in it." And so we did.
We had the
usual Catholic funeral service with
the visitation for family and friends the evening before the mass and service at the church
the next day. My
dad had been a member of the Polish
church for many, many years, was married there,
and had the children
baptized in the church. Even when he lived in Burlington, he drove
all the way to his Polish church in Hamilton.
The priest
who came from St. Stanislaus Church to say some prayers for the deceased at the
funeral home, did not even introduce himself to my Mom,
my siblings, or me, nor did he offer any
comforting words to us! But as he prepared to leave the room, he made a loud announcement that Mass cards could be purchased in the vestibule.
With that, he left and that
was it! We were all shocked and
disappointed at his lack of sympathy to the immediate family.
I came home
after that and cried and said to John, that I would go to his church,
the United Church from now on. If that is
how a members' family is
treated after belonging to that
church since the 1920's, I didn't want to belong to that kind of church. It seemed that dollars were all they are interested in.
Apparently my brother had the same
feelings because one of his daughters told me "something happened at his
Dad's funeral", and he was
lukewarm towards the church after that.
My dad's parents
lived in Bukovina, Romania which was part of the Ukraine at that time. His father was a
bricklayer named was Joseph Thiele
and he
was married to Aniela Czajkoska.
Together they had eighteen children,
but only nine survived.
The first of the nine was
Michelina and then came my dad,
John. There was one set of triplets,
but only one survived,
Menia. There was also a set of fraternal
twins. One of the twins was
Rosalia, who was the mother of my cousin, Anna Stachurski. The other twin was named Rudolph. Two sisters
Katryna and Bronia had gone to Germany before the war. Another brother was Martin, who later emigrated to Australia in 1946
with his young family of four children. (It was his family that I visited with John, in 2009).
Top Row from left:
Bronia, John (inserted after the photo was taken), Kataryna
Middle row: Walter;
my dad's mother, Aniela; my dad's father, Josef; Martin
Front row: Rosalia,
Rudolph, Menia
Not pictured,
Michelina
After WWII, some of the Polish people were allowed to leave
Romania and go back to Poland. My grandfather was very sick, so he decided to stay where he was with his
wife and daughter, Menia. He built his
own coffin, but his wife died before he did, so the coffin was used for her
instead.
Rosalia relocated to Zielena Gora, Poland with her five
children, where they were given a little house, a barn/workshop and some
land. When the war was over, her husband
returned and worked as a blacksmith in the workshop. My cousin, Anna's younger sister Lilla now
lives on this homestead. It was here where my brother Ralph and his wife
Audrey, and John and I visited in 2001. We were welcomed with a fantastic
banquet dinner with all of her brothers and their wives. This was the first time we ever saw all these
cousins!
There were 35 children born
from the above mentioned siblings
in my dad's family, not counting
all the grandchildren there would be by now, or great grandchildren!
My father
came by ship from Europe in the early 1900's from Bukovina, Romania.
His Naturalization certificate shows that he was born February 8th, 1895. Also
on this document it said he was 5'6" tall, had blonde hair and brown eyes.
(The birthdate is debatable because on his drivers license, his
date of birth was 1897). Apparently he was sent to Canada to avoid going
into the army, as there was talk of a war soon.
He told us
that he lost his suitcase with all his belongings on the ship to Canada. I do not know which port of entry he came through, but I suspect it may have been
Quebec City, as he worked
in Quebec in the lumber industry for awhile.
His last name
was misspelled by immigration officials. The correct spelling is T H I E L
E, not what they wrote down when he
entered Canada, T H I L I. It is a
German name and his family in
Poland, Germany, and Australia maintain the original spelling. Perhaps he didn't realize the mistake until much later,
and it would have cost him some
money to change the records after the fact. Who knows?
My dad had a cousin
in Buffalo, New York, so
this was one of his first destinations.
As I was growing up, I remember the long rides to visit Uncle Mike
Tchkowski and his family at their hotel and tavern. It was always fun there, as the girls would fuss over me. Whenever Uncle Mike would come to visit us,
he would bring me a box of chocolates - the biggest box I ever saw in my life!
I'm not sure
of the time line, but I was told that my dad and a partner
formed a company to make cement
blocks and stairs. I believe it was after that, that he got into
construction, as he was a stone mason. He built quite a few basements and homes in the Burlington and
Oakville areas, some of which still stand today.
He worked for the International Harvester Company as a
machinist foreman for some time in the 1930's. He was badly injured while on
the job and was left with a bad hip which made him limp when he walked. He was offered a
position as an elevator operator, which he refused. Thus he received a cash severance and used that money
to buy land in Burlington to start again. That would have been approximately
1939. This was the depression era, the
war just started, and my parents had lost two previous homes in Hamilton.
My dad's intention
was to build a house for us and to eventually subdivide the eight acres into
building lots. He built three houses on the existing street of Cumberland
Avenue, ours and two others, which he sold. He also had a house moved to this
property which my brother Ralph and family lived in for awhile.
The City of
Burlington was growing, so a new road, Prospect Avenue, was made to pass beside our house
to connect with
the Guelph Line.
My dad was happy about that
as it meant access to the back part
of the acreage for his dream of subdividing,
but he could not gain approval for the
subdivision. The City said it
was not suitable as the railway
line was too close. His dream was shattered and hard times forced him to sell the house in which
we lived, in it's unfinished
state! So we moved
to Hamilton where they found an affordable house for about $7,000
on East Avenue, which was on the same street where my aunt Eleanor lived.
My mom and I loved that.
My dad had kept the remaining property on
Cumberland until we
were married and because my parents had a difficult time financially,
they came up with the idea
to deed the property to the three children: Ralph, Josie and me. We each paid a third of the mortgage when it came due.
One day a developer approached my sister to see if we would be interested in
selling the land. Because Burlington was not expected to expand any
further in the near
future, we decided to sell. We sold it for a song in the late 1960s.
The short story is
the developer made a killing!
We heard that he got a million
dollars for the property and it became the site of a Canadian Tire and a strip mall next to the Burlington
Mall. Our house and the others Dad built are now demolished,
but we could have been millionaires. But it was not meant to be.
Incidentally, my niece Louise's husband Ron, has an office in the strip mall on the exact
location of our former land holding ~ and Louise actually lived in that little
house that was moved to the back of our house!
