My Sister-in -law

[macrae1234]

My brother's widow was a Hungarian Refugee and writes for the local Cornwall Ontario newspaper this article was published this Christmas

The Caring Community

Friday evenings were a special time in those days. My father, mother and I had a standing invitation to Mrs. Calabrese's house for supper and then to watch Zorro on television. She was a widow from Britain who lived with her two older brothers. They belonged to the Anglican congregation that adopted us after our arrival in the small, New Brunswick town. Mrs. Calabrese with her lilting accent, became my substitute grandmother, setting us to table as though we were her own family.

It is said that there is a difference between being an immigrant and a refugee. The former chooses to leave while the latter is compelled and cannot return. That was our situation. Having escaped from Hungary on 1956 Christmas Eve, there was no turning back. We were on our own. But in the shelter of Mrs. Calabrese's home, we found comfort. The immigrant and refugee ties connected us and became a strong bond of caring.

We had been part of the last wave of refugees who came by the ship Askania on its final voyage across the Atlantic in the spring of 1957. The masses were heading for Toronto, Kitchener and Westward. My father wanted to work immediately. This was mining country. After all, had he not become a professional miner during his seven years apprenticeship in the various prisons of Hungary? Until we were able to move into a company house, we were billeted with a man called Walter. My parents had to fumigate and strip the house down to its bare shell in order to eliminate the resident roaches.

I can only imagine how very trying life must have been for them. My father was thirty-six and my mother five years younger when we escaped. They were still young of course, yet in many ways too old to be starting a new life in a strange land, with nothing but the clothes on their backs. They must have lived from hand to mouth on the meagre income my father received for his hard labour.

I never really thought of myself as poor, though. Children probably do not know until someone draws it to their attention. As an eight year old foreigner, I was too busy trying to fit in, to be like other children. There were no opportunities for immigrant orientation nor language training in those days. Nevertheless, by the time September arrived, I was speaking English. I had learned it from my play mates during the summer. And, by our first Christmas in Canada, I was voraciously trying to catch up on the books children my age had already read. I experienced so many joys in my life then. My father was with us. I had never known him in person because he had been arrested as a political prisoner when I was just a baby. He gave me a black puppy and a white kitten that slept together.

Our first Christmas dinner in Canada was spent at the Rectory. As he offered thanks, the Anglican Priest spoke of miracles --- the miracle of a family who escaped to freedom, the miracle of a caring community, and the greatest miracle of all, the birth of a baby born in far away Bethlehem.

[ne1410s]

Thanks for posting this mcrae. Very touching.