The wars

A woman explains the reasons, for which her father emigrated to Canada.

P.P.: This I won’t tell you but I’ll tell you that when we came to Canada in 1957, I was, I was just starting to be a teenager, how should I say it?
RES.: Therefore, you didn’t come on your own?
P.P.: We here in Regina we came directly to Regina but my father came in 1954 because we had relatives here and in Saskatoon, And dad went to Saskatoon, and after a couple of years he arranged that he wanted to bring the family over as well. We then had mum 5 children. I was the oldest, then I had Constantine my brother, Euthymios, Eleutheria and Maria. Maria was, she was born after dad left, in 55 let’s say. She was pregnant mum. And for this reason, he was bringing us over all together, which was very important, because we didn’t come alone. We were I think the only family here in Regina who came as a family. The others had all come seventeen eighteen nineteen years old, they had to, they were on their own. And I remember many times in Christmas – this they told me afterwards the Greeks over here – when they were coming to sing the carols, he says “When we were coming to your house and seeing all the family together next to the fireplace, next to the fire, we were as well”. We reminded them of their own relatives, he says. “We were lonely”, he says. You understand? They were on their own the poor things. And this is why ourselves I think we moved on a bit differently, because we had, we had our dad and mum to, to support us, to helps us, yes, to push us a little to go to school, and we didn’t have the need to get a job right away.
RES.: Yes, of course, the...
P.P.: We were very lucky that we came all together and we were always together.
RES.: May I ask some questions for the parents first, concisely. Your father sounds like he had a good job in, in Greece.
P.P.: Yes.
RES.: How did he take the decision to come over to Canada?
P.P.: He had the war. As soon as mum and dad got married, the Second World War began. Immediately dad went to war. Afterwards, when he returned, you know, Greece was also poor after the war, they started with the guerillas. The men had to hide, the women were afraid of losing them and he looked down there and said “The village had been burned down by the guerillas, and what are my kids going to do down here?”. Dad’s family was all in Athens, but to go to Athens with 5 children… And right there in Athens what was there? More of the same. They had disturbances there in Athens as well and poverty, and, let’s say, during the Occupation my grandpa, my dad’s dad my grandma sent to Kastri, to Saint Nicholas. She tells him “Better to be down there, because what the others are eating you should be eating as well. But we down here in Athens we don’t have to get, we don’t have money to buy and we can’t get any things”. So, it was better in the village than it was in Athens for some. And then dad arranged with 5 kids “Better that I go as well”. Eh, they had heard that to Canada and Australia the people were going, they were making money and for this reason he was thinking as well “I should go somewhere as well to see if I can make a little money and return” but as soon as he came over here, he understood money isn’t so easy to make. He started washing dishes for my cousin in Saskatoon, where he had a restaurant, and he subsequently became a cook, but he couldn’t make as much money as to return rich to Greece, so, and his children were now growing up to go to school, and that’s why he arranged to bring us over here. Mum didn’t want to come that much, because she was as well, she didn’t know what we’d find in front of us over here.