Thursday, October 5, 2023: Following in my father’s footsteps once again!
Info:
Hamilton is a port city at the western end of Lake Ontario with a population of 570,000. Together with Toronto and its suburbs, it forms the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA) and the Golden Horseshoe along the west end of the lake, which is home to 9.77 million people. That’s more than half of the entire province of Ontario and over twenty percent of all of Canada.
Steel and heavy industry still characterize the outer districts of Hamilton today, but in the last fifteen years there has been a shift towards services, mainly healthcare and science.
My opinion:
I immediately felt very comfortable in Hamilton.
Diary:
After my father emigrated to Canada in 1951, he worked in Kapuskasing “in the bush” as a lumberjack for the Spruce Falls paper mill for two years. He then took a job in a large furniture factory in Hamilton.
The company owner soon became aware of the young man from Austria, which I can well imagine. My father was incredibly skilled with his hands. He also had the habit of thinking everything through first and then carrying it out as efficiently as possible. The word “impossible” probably never crossed his mind. He worked very precisely and was also creative. He was able to put his extraordinary talent for drawing to good use in the joinery.
It didn’t take long for a friendship to develop between the company owner and “George”, as he was known in Canada (his name was Kurt Georg). The company owner wanted to retire, but had no heirs. So he offered my father the chance to take over the company.
My father then sent the money for the boat trip to my mother. I’ve already told you how it turned out. She didn’t come to Canada, but he went back to Austria, where they married and had a child a few years later.
Canada was never talked about at home, although it always remained my father’s dream country. Why I remember the few things he mentioned when I was a child, I can’t say. Perhaps I intuitively understood that it was important to him. I once heard my mother say that Hamilton was an ugly city anyway.
Maybe it was in the 1950s. I don’t know. If it has, then it must have changed a lot. Because there’s nothing ugly about it. The fact that some industrial buildings on the outskirts of the city would not win a beauty prize is probably the case in every industrial city. But I really liked the center and the residential areas, the parks by the lake.
In hindsight, I’m pleased about that. Because let’s say my mother had come to Canada and they actually had me as a child (which is so unlikely, but not impossible) – I would have felt at home in Hamilton. Maybe I would have moved to Kingston later and bought a small island. Maybe I would have stood at Niagara Falls three times a week and looked at the green water with a blissful smile. Perhaps I would have practiced viticulture, like so many in the area. Or I would have worked in my father’s company, because I happen to love making furniture. And maybe I would have spent six months traveling through Europe right after I retired to get to know my parents’ homeland.
However. As it is, so it is good. It couldn’t be better.
