A woman describes the arrival of her family members as well as of those of her
husband’s in Canada and the cohabitation with them.
C.C.: Every twelve months! Every twelve months! ’66,
’67 and ’68, three boys and one girl in ’72. Yes.
Res.: Were you working in between when you had the
children or were you staying at home?
C.C.: No, no, no, no, no. I was staying at home.
Res.: These years that you had the kids, these five
years, you weren’t working.
C.C.: No. Most of them I didn’t work, because until my
little one went to school as well, I didn’t go. I didn’t leave the kids. We
didn’t leave them to… We had difficult years, because my husband didn’t have a
job, he didn’t have… he was a laborer, but we had difficulties. But I stayed
and I raised my kids.
Res2.: And did you have your own house? Did you rent
one?
C.C.: When my husband came, he had bought a house with
his sister, half and half and they lived all together. Then she wanted to
bring over her mother-in-law, her father-in-law from Greece and we left and we
went for a year to rent and they kept the house and we got our own house. Eh,
then the kids were born there. The house was small, two bed… two bedrooms
house. And I brought my brothers over, because that was the deal. I had to
come and bring the family over here.
Res2.: When did you bring them over?
C.C.: In… When I came here, I sent out the invitation
for my older brother and he was caught by the army and he couldn’t come. They
caught him, he couldn’t leave. Immediately we sent out to the second one and
my second brother came. He must have come in ’61… ’63, I believe, came
Socrates and then Panagiotis was discharged from the army and we send him the
invitation and he comes with my sister, the two of them, and there remained
one back in Greece. I had them all at my house. In two bedrooms. All of the
house was full of rooms. At the living room, at the dining table, at the
basement. Beds. Beds everywhere. Eh, anyway, we then brought the little one
over as well. Then the guys rented a place and left, because by then I had
kids also. We brought over the mother-in-law and the father-in-law too,
difficult years. Even more difficult!
Res2.: Why was it difficult with the mother-in-law and
the father-in-law?
C.C.: Eh… But now the mothers-in-law and the
fathers-in-law are good. At first, the mothers-in-law and the fathers-in-law
were the… were the bosses. They were the bosses. Anyway! Eh, I had them, in
our own house they lived, both the mother-in-law and the father-in-law, but
God’s blessing made it so that after two-three years my sister-in-law left for
Toronto and she roused them and she took them to Toronto and we remained
alone. To get used to it ourselves as well. Difficult! Anyway… That’s over
now!
