John Thili 1896-1965

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!