Lydia enjoys her first Christmas in Canada as the family settles into life at a convent hosting newly arrived immigrants, and learns a new language. See the earlier chapters: The story begins here and Part 2 is here and Part 3 is here.

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Our room had a sink in it, but we had to use the washroom next door, which was also shared by a nun who slept in the room next to ours. What luxury! The bathroom had a shower, and I enjoyed standing under the warm water for hours, until the nuns complained that I was running the tank dry. That sink in our room was my responsibility to be kept clean. How I scrubbed it with cleanser and polished the taps, never having such an object in any home I ever lived in.

It was also my job to use a brush and dustpan and sweep the stairs every day. A door beside the bathroom led to the girl’s dormitory and to the sewing room beside it.

We had the corner room with the two windows by the hedges.

At first, I was timid to approach the other girls, but soon made friends with the ones that spoke Ukrainian, and my English education began. We must have been in Ancaster for a few days when I spoke my first English words, and everyone broke up laughing. I tried to tell some boy who was teasing me that I would tell the Sister on him, but mixed the words up and yelled out, “I time Sister”. I couldn’t understand why they were all laughing, because to me that sounded right. But I learned quickly enough from one of the girls when she translated what I actually said. Now I laughed too, and we all became friends.

At first, my parents and we kids all ate together in the dining room with the other children and the supervising nuns, but we weren’t used to their food, Father wasn’t always around at the scheduled mealtime, and Mother wanted to have us together as a family, so the Sisters let us use part of the basement as our kitchen. Father installed a stove and we used the laundry tubs as our sink. With a cupboard for dishes and a table and chairs, we were all set.

Once in a while we kids still ate with the others, but when several of us kids wouldn’t swallow the big tapioca “fish eyes” and were told to kneel beside our chairs and eat our food from the chairs, Father wouldn’t allow us to eat with the children any more. I had pretended to eat that tapioca, but saved all the “fish eyes” in my mouth and then spit them into the toilet, and I guess he figured if I wasn’t going to eat something, he would dole out the punishment.

We had arrived in November and now everyone was getting ready for Christmas. The nuns celebrated Christmas on January 7 because they followed the Gregorian calendar, and we children attended school on the premises, so we weren’t exposed to the hustle and bustle of the December Christmas season. However, just before the 25th, the nuns took all the older children, those over five, and we went into Hamilton to Eatons to see the festive displays.

Wow, what wonders I saw! Every floor had glittering evergreens and Christmas music playing. The toy department was a wonder in itself. We had to stay together, so we all looked at the array of dolls, dollhouses with furniture, doll clothes and dishes, as well as trucks and cars, guns and holsters, cowboy hats and the huge train display, with trains running in and out tunnels, over bridges and around villages. After we had seen the toy department, we were taken to a dining area and were treated to hot chocolate. Then we each visited Santa Claus to tell him what we wanted for Christmas. By now I had learned a few English words and was able to tell him I wanted a baby doll and some doll furniture.

That first trip to a department store was etched in my mind forever. The sights, the smells, the rush of humans, the toys, Santa Claus and my first ride on an escalator – that remained an enigma to me for years. None of those firsts on my first Christmas in Canada were ever forgotten.

Even though our room was small, Father set up a tree, and we unpacked our decorations that we brought from Germany. Mother and Father had gone to Hamilton, leaving us children with the nuns, and made purchases for us for under the tree. Father was intrigued with the coloured lights, so he bought a string to decorate our tree so we wouldn’t have to use candles again. Mother baked cookies in our basement oven and we children rehearsed songs and parts for our concert. The first Christmas songs I learned in English were “Jolly Old Saint Nicholas” and “You Better Watch Out”. There must have been others, but those two were my favourite and I sang them everywhere.

On Christmas Eve, January 6, Mother prepared our traditional meatless 12-course meal, and then we were to rest until we all went to Midnight Mass at the Convent chapel. Of course I “wasn’t tired”, but before long I felt Mother shaking me awake to get ready for the long walk up the hill to the Main House, as we called the convent. The snow glistened in the starlight and crunched under our feet as we, along with the older children, trooped in the stillness to the brightly lit mansion, where Father had decorated a gigantic blue spruce with hundreds of coloured lights. The sight took our breath away, and that tree could be seen in Dundas and in Hamilton, as well as all along the highway going up to Ancaster.

We were ushered into an entrance hall whose floor was made of black and white marble, before being led into the chapel. Everything was decorated with evergreens, red bows and poinsettias. Father had made a new decoration behind the tabernacle, and the Sisters had painted it to represent the nativity scene. The place gave off an aura of holiness, peace, joy and happiness. It was such a magical feeling that for once, not one child fidgeted or fooled around. We sang Ukrainian carols, listened to the ancient chants and responded where we could, and soon it was all over and we were again on our way home to the warmth and comfort of our beds.

On Christmas morning we opened our own gifts in our room, then went down to the dining room for breakfast with everyone and the opening of more gifts. The children who were boarders had gifts from parents as well as from the Sisters, and the orphans got gifts from sponsors and the Sisters. Brother, Sister and I received a few things as well, but our gifts were in our room, and as soon as some of the girls opened their dolls, I ran upstairs to get my own baby.

That day the main playroom was decorated with a huge tree, and special toys brought out for special occasions were set up. The one I loved most was a huge dollhouse, full of furniture that we girls were allowed to play with over the Christmas season. This house was much bigger than Erika’s and had many rooms. How we loved playing with that house, but when Christmas was over, the house, along with other big toys, was put away, because there wasn’t room in there for all the children and the large toys.

I had also received a few pieces of plastic doll furniture but no house, so I used to play with them on top of the tray that sat on the hot water radiator. This was very suitable because I could see out the window, play house and stay warm all at the same time. Father also started our Nativity collection that year, with Mary, Joseph and Baby Jesus. Over the years he would add pieces to it, until he had the complete set. It’s set up in my living room today.

That year, 1949, was a good one for us for learning English and new ways in a new country. Sister Joaquim, our teacher, did the best she could for us, but because by now my parents were saving up for a place of our own, away from the Sisters, they wanted us to learn more English. So we were sent to Canadian Martyr’s Catholic School in the west end of Hamilton, travelling there by bus each morning. When I was enrolled there I was put into the Grade 1 class, even though I was almost nine. This was because I had trouble with the language, and the nuns there felt I would learn quicker in that room. By the end of the school year I was ready for the Grade 3 class, and in mid-autumn I started Grade 4.

Going to school by bus had it’s drawbacks for me. I would get motion sickness almost every day, and to this day diesel fumes bring back bad memories and I feel ill. I missed playing with the other children at Mount Mary, as the convent was called, but weekends and holidays kept me in touch with everyone there. During the nicer weather, the boarding children received visits from their parents about once a month and would often be seen having a picnic on the grounds with their families. I realised that most parents brought treats at these times so I would go around to the different groups, introducing myself, telling them about cute or funny things their child had done. For my efforts I’d be invited for a treat or just a visit, and made many friends that way.

In the summer the Sisters held a big festival for all the Ukrainian people from Toronto and beyond. There were religious services, parades, food and game stalls and good entertainment. Father, with the Sisters’ approval, set up a stand where he sold and taught magic tricks. There were several that I remember, but most were card tricks. After someone bought the trick cards or whatever he sold, he would take them in a covered corner and showed them how the trick worked.

Father was very popular during these festivals. Here’s a picture of him wrestling with some of the older boys – this is before he became ill.

The grounds would be transformed into a kind of fairgrounds, but without animals. A stage was constructed and Ukrainian dancers, singers and actors performed to large audiences. Many buses were used to transport people from Toronto, Kitchener and other towns, with cars of all sorts parked along one side of the property. Most people went home after the day’s event was over and came back the next day, but some stayed over, sleeping in their cars. Outdoor privies were erected and water was available from an outdoor tap. These festivals are still held today, but the focus is more religious now than it used to be.

Below the Main House and down the hill where we would go tobogganing, was a beautiful pond with a stone change-house that the nuns converted into an outdoor chapel. On summer days Father cleared out a shallow area and fenced it off, and all the small children and non-swimmers played there. Here’s a photo of Sister and I in the pond, and below that, my family on the steps leading to the grotto.

Those who could swim had the rest of the pond to call their own. An overflow tumbled from the pond to rocks below, and a wooden bridge spanned that area. At the other end a creek brought fresh water into the pond and a wooden platform was built over that so vehicles could get to the rest of the property. It was a peaceful and relaxing spot to spend a summer’s day and we spent many days there.

In the winter the pond froze over, and the big boys were sent down to clear the snow and everyone went to skate or just slide on the ice. The pond held huge goldfish, and we loved to try and spot one close to the surface, just under the ice. A day of skating, tobogganing and just playing in the snow made us all tired, happy and ready for an early night, but we sure had fun. Here are the children of Mount Mary. The tall boy at the back on the left is Brother. Sister and I are on the left, with the fur on our bonnets.

When the cold kept us kids indoors, the nuns taught all the older girls to darn socks and those long, brown stockings we girls had to wear. We all sat in a semi-circle around a Sister who showed us how to darn properly. Each girl had a sock, a burned out light bulb and a threaded needle, and we practised our darning technique until we could fix a hole without any lumps or bumps. If we stretched the sock too tightly over the light bulb and darned, the sock had a bulge at the heel, and if we didn’t stretch it enough, there wouldn’t be enough give for the foot to go in. How we hated sitting there for hours darning those piles and piles of socks. What I hated most was that we girls had to darn socks for the boys!

Those boys didn’t have a free time while we darned. Father had them helping him in the barn with all the various animals kept there, as well as learning how to fix things around the buildings and grounds. Although there was a snowplough on the tractor, a lot of hand shovelling had to be done, and the boys all had to lend a hand in clearing it away.

All this time, lessons went on as well as preparations for First Communion to those children who had missed out because of the war. I was one of them, and in those days we had to go to Confession before we could receive the sacrament of Communion. Some of us must have been bad because we were told about “small” sins and “big” sins. I didn’t think I had any big sins, but those were stressed very explicitly to us by one of the nuns.

We were told a story about a girl standing in line, waiting to enter the confessional, when all of a sudden she saw little creatures running out from under the curtain where a boy was making his confession. Mice, rats, spiders, lizards and all kinds of creepy-crawly things were scampering out, and then, just as abruptly, they all turned around and scurried back under the curtain. We were then told that the boy came out with all those creatures around his feet while this huge snake was trying to crawl out of his mouth, but instead slid back in, and all those other creatures followed, each jumping back into the boy.

The moral was that all those small animals were small sins and that snake was a big one that the boy didn’t tell the priest about, so it went in and all the small ones did as well. That boy wasn’t forgiven! That image so terrified me, as well as some of the others, that I confessed to things that I wasn’t sure were sins or not and it’s still a powerful reminder for me today.

During the summer, some of the more athletic Sisters played baseball with us, hiking up their long robes to run around the bases. How we cheered them on! Mother again kept rabbits for the meat and fur, and we children loved to get the little ones to play with on the fresh grass, as long as we looked after them. There were tall swings for us to use, and my favourite was a long slide that was hardly ever empty.

We had no two-wheeled bikes, but the younger children had a few tricycles, both large and small. Someone gave me a box of crayons, hexagonal in shape, with silver, gold and bronze colours. The smell and feel of those new crayons, the first I had ever owned, remain with me to this day.

Brother and the older boys were always thinking up games that didn’t include us girls. One day, several of them were down by the pond, where cattails grew quite thick, and decided they’d make good arrows for shooting at targets. Some of us girls watched from a distance as the boys got better and better at hitting the bull’s eye, when one of the boys shot an arrow straight up into the air and everyone craned their neck’s to see how high it would go. The sun was almost overhead and must have blinded some of them, because all of a sudden we heard a terrible shriek and the boys rushed to the source. The cattail arrow was lodged in one boy’s eye! Now everyone was rushing around, scared and wanting to get help. Someone ran to the Main House to get one of the Sisters, while the most of the rest disappeared so they wouldn’t get blamed.

When help arrived the projectile was carefully pulled out of the eye, and I remember the Sisters saying they thought the eye could be saved because it was only damaged on the white part. I couldn’t get close enough to see because we were all told to go to our house, but the boy could walk and the Sisters took him to their quarters to wait for the doctor.

A few days later we saw the boy with a patch on his eye and were told he wouldn’t lose his sight. And, because no one admitted to the actual shooting of the arrow, all the boys were punished by being banned from swimming for the rest of that summer.

One day, all the children and their caregivers were playing baseball in the vast field beside the pond when we heard a small motor sputtering overhead. A model gasoline-engine airplane was dipping and diving before landing some distance from where we all stood with our mouths open. As soon as it touched the ground we all rushed over to it, and couldn’t believe our eyes that such a small aircraft could actually fly without anyone in it. Someone noticed a sign painted on that plane, and since hardly anyone there could read English very well, one of the nuns read it to us. This plane belonged to someone in Brantford, and there was a number to call with a reward to be given to the finder.

Oh, how we speculated what kind of a reward we all would get, but the Sister had the big boys carry the plane up to the Main House, where it stayed until the owner could claim it. We never did learn what sort of reward was given for we never saw it, but I’m sure some donation must have been given to the nuns.

This is me in my Ukrainian costume.

My Aunt wanted us to see some of the sights around Ancaster, so we took trips to Toronto and Niagara Falls with the nuns, and at first they took pictures and then Father bought a camera so we were able to take our own. I was now quite fluent in English and had hardly any accent, but Sister, who hadn’t started school yet, didn’t speak English at all, and Brother had a bit of an accent. Mother and Father had picked up quite a bit of the language and could make themselves understood, with our help.

When they felt comfortable enough we all made the trip by bus to Niagara Falls. Mother had made sailor dresses for Sister and me, and Brother had an embroidered Ukrainian shirt and a suit coat. We packed a small suitcase with food and off we went. Mother, Sister and I sat right behind the driver, but the long bus ride was too much for her. She got sick and threw up all over the driver’s back,who I’m sure was a saint. He never said a thing, and when Mother kept telling him she was sorry, he just smiled and told her it was all right. We were mortified, but could do nothing until the bus pulled into a rest spot where things could be cleaned up. He was so nice to Mother.

We have several pictures of us at Niagara Falls, with the nuns and alone. One time, a black family with the cutest little girl was near us and Father asked if she could have her picture taken with us. They agreed and, after that, I longed for a dark baby doll to play with. I did get her eventually and had her until Sister lost her.

The nuns kept a radio on in one part of the house where the nuns had a sort of sitting room and where we met with a Sister if we were punished or had problems. I must have been in there often because the song “Irene Goodnight” was ingrained in me from all those visits. It seemed that every time I was there, I heard it and I soon was singing it outside that room. I don’t recall any other songs but that one.

Our second Christmas in Canada was again spent happily with the nuns and all the children. There was to be a contest for the girls who had learned to knit and crochet that fall. All I could do was crochet rope, so Mother taught me a few basic stitches and had me crochet a sweater and tam for my doll. It took ages, a lot of unravelling and starting over, but I finally finished a red sweater, edged in light blue with a tam to match. I was so proud when my project was judged the best and I received a lovely dress as a prize, one that just fit my doll. I’m holding her in the photo below of me and Sister on our trike. The doll’s wearing the prize-winning sweater and tam.

But I didn’t have much time to play with that doll after that, because one day I came home from the Hamilton school to find Sister in bed crying and Mother being very nice to me. Sister had decided that my doll was dirty and filled our sink with water, giving the doll a bath. The doll was made of sawdust pressed into moulds, and the bathing saturated the body so that it swelled and fell apart. Oh, how I hated Sister! She always seemed to want what was mine and usually ruined it. Times were hard for us, and money was being saved for our own place, so the doll wasn’t replaced.

Sister also ruined Mother’s one and only good dress that she wore to church. While I was at school and Mother was busy, she went into our room and decided to make clothes for her doll. She liked Mother’s dress, so she cut a big piece out of the back of it to wrap her doll in. Now it was Mother’s turn to cry over her lost possession, and I knew just how she felt. Mother, however, didn’t hate Sister, but told me she was only three and a half and didn’t understand.

However, I got back at Sister when I found out that she was terrified of the local fire siren, which could be heard at our place. Outside one of the buildings a light had been removed, and the two wires were still visible. Each time we went past there, I would tell Sister that that was the siren and she better watch out or it would get her. She was so scared to go past that wall that one day while she was outside, the fire siren went off and she had to run past the wall to get into our room, where she hid in the closed, pulling the door shut behind her. Since there was no inside knob, she was locked in. I don’t know how long she was in that closet, but everyone searched for her all over the grounds and in every building. Both parents were frantic until they decided to look in the closet.

There they found her, hot, sweaty, exhausted and fast asleep. She called and called for help and when no one heard her, cried herself to sleep. I did feel guilty for scaring her about those wires, but never told anyone, since they all knew how terrified she was when the siren went off.

There was a big, gold coloured dog at Mount Mary when we first arrived. We were told that he had been a war dog, now retired and living out his days with the nuns, some of whom were in the service during the war themselves before entering the Sisterhood. Sandy was very gentle and loved to follow the children when they played outdoors. During the night he slept not far from our upstairs room and we could see him curled up by his doghouse when we looked out our window. One night with the windows open to let some fresh air in, we woke up to the sounds of Sandy howling horribly. Father went out to check out what was disturbing Sandy and came rushing back to tell us there was a fire just past the children’s dormitory building. The whole house was roused and we were all ushered out the back to the open field.

Father telephoned the Main House and soon we were surrounded by other nuns while, in the distance, we could hear fire sirens wailing. The little children were crying, the girls all huddled together, whispering while the boys all tried to go to see what was going on. However, we soon learned that the red glow was coming from the property next door, where a house was being renovated and it somehow caught fire. Since we weren’t in any danger, we all trooped back to bed. As the house quieted down, Father had our family get dressed and we went out to see the fire. A fence divided our property from the neighbours, with a row of dense evergreens on our side. We got under the trees and could see the firemen at work putting out the flames, when Sandy appeared beside us. Father patted him and talked to him gently, thanking him for warning us of the danger so near to us.

Summer and fall of 1950 brought more children to Mount Mary. The Sisters took in many war orphans, mostly from Italy, and we had a lot of fun learning Italian words until they learned English. The family we had travelled with, whose daughter Ivanka took that dip in the Atlantic, used to come to Ancaster to visit us. They had settled in Toronto not far from the mother-house of the same Sisters as in Ancaster, and we used to see them quite often. (Later, when I was in high school at Mount Mary, Oksana was again in my life, becoming a boarder at the school.)

Things were very crowded with all the new children, and the nuns helped us to look for and buy a house right in the village, not far from their property. We bought it for $8,000 and, when we sold it, got $14,000.

Brother and I still travelled by bus to Canadian Martyr’s School, but we were now settling into a two-storey house on Academy Avenue. When we bought the place, one bedroom and the back summer kitchen were rented out to a young couple with a baby, but they were to move as soon as they found a new place, before Christmas. We now had three bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs, a large attic, a huge kitchen, a living room, a dining room and a front porch. There was a garage for a car, a cherry tree, a pear tree, a row of raspberries and a henhouse. The house was heated by a coal furnace and was cozy and warm. A place of our own with enough room for everyone to have privacy. The nuns donated furniture to fill our rooms and enough linen and dishes to start us off.

I loved the place, and soon made friends with Carolyn, the girl who lived across the road. She was two years younger than me but went to the same grade. She was a year ahead and I was a year behind, so we both were in Grade 4. My Hamilton school had begun Christmas preparations, and as soon as we moved into the new home, my parents switched us to Ancaster Memorial School, the only school in the village. Here I was in the same class as Carolyn, and they were in the midst of Christmas projects when I arrived.

I very quickly became one of the class, singing the school song with the rest and learning a new Christmas carol. Miss McKinnon, our teacher, read us the story of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and taught us the song. Carolyn and I walked to school every day, but because her mother had died and her father and sister worked, she had to go to her aunt’s place after school. However, we spent all weekends together, as well as any holidays.

One of the things we were given was an old wind-up RCA Victor gramophone and a pile of old 78rpm records. I loved winding that crank and choosing which classical record I wanted to hear. There were about 15 records, and I soon knew the melodies of most of them, and even some of the Italian words from some operatic ones. To me those records were music and, since I didn’t know much about popular songs yet, I loved them.

We still went to Mount Mary for church services as well as movie nights. The Sisters would hold movie nights about once a month, from the time we first came there until long after we moved out. We would gather in the entrance hall in the main house, on the black and white marble floor, and see Walt Disney movies like “Cinderella”, “Pinnochio”, “Bambi” and “Song of the South”. There were Shirley Temple movies, Laurel and Hardy and Charlie Chaplin. We also watched religious epics like “Song of Bernadette”, “Quo Vadis” and many others. It was special to sit on the floor, surrounded by other children, and lose ourselves in what we were seeing on the screen. Ancaster had no movie theatres so we continued going to the Sisters when they had movie nights. Father still worked there each day, so knew when they were to be shown.

I don’t remember Christmas too well that year, so it must have been very sparse. Mother found two old doll carriages somewhere and painted them light green with white trim, and also got some old dolls that she painted, and that’s what sister and I found under the tree. Neither one of us cared much for those beat-up dolls, no matter how they were spruced up, because the paint was always tacky to the touch. But the next one more than made it up to me.

I really had a lot of fun at the town school. Once a week we had an assembly in our gym where the principal had us quiet down so that he could hear the big clock on the wall tick. Years later I realised it was an electric clock. But that didn’t make any difference to us – we all quieted down. Our principal, Mr Klim, instilled a love of the school in each of us, and we were proud of the school and our surroundings. That love of school and education helped me decide what I wanted to be after graduation – a teacher.

Continue to Part 5.