As I have written, in August of 1941 my father was reunited with us in Vancouver. Some time after that, I am not sure of the date, we moved to Montreal, the other end of the country. The only way across in those days was by train. There was no Trans Canada Highway, so no automobile or bus trips, nor commercial air travel.
I found the four day train trip very exciting. We had a regular seat by day which the black porter made up into berths at night. There was a lower berth, where my parents slept, but I got the upper berth, much more desirable to an eight year old, arrived at by a ladder. There was a heavy dark curtain that pulled across to make my private cave. There was no window in the upper berth, but downstairs you could lie in bed, which I did before my parents came to sleep in the lower berth, and in the fading light I would watch the impressive Canadian Rockies flash by as we left British Columbia for the endless central plains of Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
The bathroom was not private. You had to go down the ladder, put on your bedroom slippers and walk to the nearest toilet, one at each end of the car. I was very amused by the sign in each toilet room, "PASSENGERS WILL PLEASE REFRAIN FROM FLUSHING TOILETS WHILE THE TRAIN IS STANDING IN THE STATION". Beside the toilet there was a small sink and if I recall, a roller towel. Then you trotted back to the berth, making sure you had the right one because they all looked the same with the curtains drawn, climbed the ladder and drew the covers up in you little cosy world. My clothes for the morning would be ready in the net slung beside my bed. I do not remember taking a shower or bath, but some of the more expensive 'compartments' had private bathrooms.
In the morning we all went to the dining car for breakfast. Since my father still worked for the Canadian Pacific Steamship and Railway company we travelled first class. The first class dining car was quite elegant, in the style of Orient Express. We had breakfast, then went back to our berth which had been magically transformed into two double seats facing each other with a table in between. We read, played cards, looked out the window, and when that got boring, went to the Observation Car where you could sit up high and look out over the vastness of the Canadian countryside.
Montreal
My father had a very small stipend from the CPR to live on, so in Montreal the best my parents could find was a one bedroom janitor's apartment below street level. It was right on Sherbrooke Street in the English speaking suburb of Westmount . You could take a streetcar along Sherbrooke into Montreal, but there were no busses. Since there was a war on there were few private automobiles, milk and other goods were delivered to front doors by a deliveryman driving a sled pulled by horses over the snowy streets.
The nearest public school was Queens, but was not in a very desirable neighborhood, so the decision was made to send me to Kings about a mile away. There were no school busses in those days, so I had to walk - to school in the morning, back home for lunch, then off again for afternoon classes and then home again. There were no school days off for bad weather. Montreal could get bitterly cold.
I was put into fourth grade, with a wonderful teacher called Mrs.Wright. There were rows of desks, each one with an ink well. Every morning the ink monitor got some black powder, mixed it with water, and went to each desk. Bladder pens were not invented then, so we had pens with removable tips or nibs. Splatters were frequent. Blotters were a necessity. Blotters were absorbent sheets of paper that soaked up the wayward ink. Ink stains were an ongoing problem.
We learned a poem called "In Winnipeg at Christmas" .
"In Winnipeg at Christmas there's lots and lots of snow.
Very clean and crisp and hard, and glittering like a Christmas card
Everywhere you go."
We learned about the forthcoming roadway to be built across all of Canada called the Alaska Canada Highway, dubbed the AlCan Highway.
We called it the AshCan Highway.
One morning after heavy snows I was trudging to school in ankle deep drifts. The wind was bitter and even though bundled with wool hat and scarf I felt miserably cold. But suddenly the wind stopped blowing and things felt much better. When I got to the playground my classmates looked at me in horror. "You have frostbite! Rub your face in snow!" The wind had not stopped, my face had frozen! Thawing out from frostbite can be very painful, I can attest.
Montreal to be continued...
