The Family's Journey
September 3rd, 2018
Some of the family’s friends had left for Canada in 1949. My father didn’t wish to go at that time because only males were allowed to emigrate, and after what the family had already gone through, he wouldn’t consider leaving them behind. Then, in 1953, a Polish family, friends of the Dranskis, sponsored us to come over" - Bill Dranski.
It was not very often that a family with children, or even a couple, undertook the journey to their new homes at the same time. It is fair to say that this was most often a result of policy or otherwise implicit rules that dictated who was allowed to immigrate and under what circumstances. The most desirable immigrant was one who was able to work - male, young, not a student (and often not extensively educated in general), and in great health. By the concept "work," hard manual labour was most often assumed. As such, many displaced people were allowed into Canada under work contracts - deals that most commonly negotiated for them to work on farms, in mines, or in the lumber industry.
The above article is an example of a family reunited by the admittance of displaced people to Oshawa. A participant in the Oshawa Museum's project, Justina Novak, along with her brothers, were reunited with their father after nine years when they arrived in Timmins, Ontario in 1954. Another example of a family reunited was Stefan Malish and his brothers after 41 years apart. In that case, the reunion was more so due to a lucky encounter, and there were of course cases where reunion was impossible due to the realities of war.
Luckily, there were eventually calls for change and keeping family units together from the start of their journeys.
October 24th, 1949 from the Ukrainian Weekly.
This article notes some of the numbers in Canadian immigration of 1949 and describes the benefits of allowing families to immigrate together. At this point, they were becoming more common, but the overall trend was still for individuals to come, and to bring over family members later, if possible. |
However, even with changes or other circumstances, there were still often cases of a husband separated from his wife (and any children) in cases of finding work. This kind of situation would often happen, even far past the post-WWII era and into the following decades.
After the contract was finished... my husband went away, then came back for my son and I. First stop was Toronto, but he wasn’t able to find work there in his field... so he went to Oshawa, where he heard there was work to be had. It was then that he came for my son and myself." – Victoria Szczepanski.
External references
"DP Family Units Encouraged." Ukrainian Weekly, October 24, 1949. http://www.ukrweekly.com/archive/1949/The_Ukrainian_Weekly_1949-43.pdf
"DP Family Units Encouraged." Ukrainian Weekly, October 24, 1949. http://www.ukrweekly.com/archive/1949/The_Ukrainian_Weekly_1949-43.pdf
To read some more of the stories we have collected, visit our Stories page.
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