To Canada - as a poor man

We arrived poor in Canada

Who said immigration would be easy?

I had only worked as an Engineer for two years in Sweden when we left for Canada.

We were allowed one box each on the boat. That was enough for some tableware and small household goods.

My new employer, General Electric Company, had sent a representative to meet us at Union Station in Toronto. He drove us to the office where I was promptly signed in as an employee and got my corporate ID card.

A friend from Sweden offered us a “Welcome to Canada dinner” with his wife, who we also knew from before. He picked us up and we drove to his home nearby.

A problem arose; His wife “didn’t feel like cooking” so there was no dinner to be had, only drinks with peanuts.

Back at the hotel, we saw a Red Barn hamburger place in the distance. We went to bed hungry after only a 15-cent hamburger for dinner after our first day in the new land.

The employment offer had included only one week at the hotel, then we must find housing of our own.

We spent one full Saturday riding a dearly rented car looking at apartments all over Toronto. Then a sane thought; How much do I want to commute? I don’t have a car, how many buses do I have to take?

The next day, Sunday, we started walking in increasingly wider circles, with my plant in Scarborough as the starting point.

I saw the location the other day. There is a Walmart store at the plant site now, 50 years later.

Luck was with us. We walked by a building, only a few minutes walk away. “Apartment for rent.”

The caretaker’s wife, Mrs. Kennedy, had just had a baby, Monica was in her sixth month. They got to talking and before long we had rented a nice, clean, two-bedroom apartment on the third floor.

But, little did I know, we had to pay first and last month’s rent in advance. That was almost all I had, now in our second week in Canada. The car rental had put a serious dent in our funds. My first paycheque was only due on the following Friday.

I paid.

Now we had only $ 5.00 left between us.

Our firat "cuppa", on metal chairs and with a box for table

On the night of moving in, Monday, the five dollars was enough to buy a little food for the week and two aluminum garden chairs. We had nothing in the way of furniture at all, except our two wooden boxes.

We slept on our overcoats on the floor in one of the bedrooms. 

My coworkers at General Electric were all wonderful and warm-hearted. On night three we had an old, but a soft mattress to sleep on.

Another family “gave us” an old TV set. I paid $ 15 for it later. The set didn’t work very well. I became a master at figuring out which tube was failing and to get a replacement from the drug store.

Ironically enough, that TV set stayed in our family for over ten years. It was finally discarded when it started making smoke when switched on for more than 20 minutes. I knew what part needed replacement but gave in and bought a new set then. 22 years was a good life for a 1954 vintage TV set.

Our Monday food bag wasn’t very heavy and we became more than a little hungry before my first pay cheque arrived on Friday.

That night we celebrated with a discounted frozen pizza, mostly made from cardboard (?) and almost-coke from the grocery store.

We felt so good.

I still had a small amount remaining on a student loan to pay in Sweden. Every month I bought a money order, worth about one week’s pay, and mailed it overseas. Little had I realized until then that my loan was on a very quick payback schedule. That hurt for a few months.

It was painful to only have our aluminum chairs to sit on and no real table at all.

We went on a furniture shopping trip.

“One three room apartment furnishing, $ 199, and easy payments.”

Oh, what a shock that was. The furniture was plastic and cardboard, stapled together with the fewest staples possible. I could hardly even see it transported from the showroom without falling apart.

IKEA didn’t exist then, but their furniture usually stays together until you want to move out.

The easy payment schedule sounded great until you read the fine text, only readable with a magnifying glass. I did some interest calculations and came to the not so startling revelation that those terms were nothing less than institutionalized theft.

What to do now?

There was a German-owned furniture factory with their own showroom. “Straight from factory pricing.”

We wished to buy one sofa, a bed, and a table.

But – we have no money at all.

The store manager directed me to an Imperial Bank of Commerce office next door. (May that loans manager be blessed forever.)

We walked in, Monica took a seat by the front door.

Now a question; How much borrowing power does an immigrant have after three weeks in the country?

Not much, you say?

Correct.

My loan was denied on basis of my lack of banking history. I could only say “Thanks for your attention”, turn around and walk out.

As I approached the front door, Monica stood up to join me.

“Mr. Lindvall, come back.”

I turned around.

“I didn’t know your wife was pregnant, I will approve your loan now.”

We walked out with enough money to pay for the furniture. Still poor but now with some furniture on the horizon.

A narrow bed, but still a box for night table.

Nobody could say that public transit was great in Scarborough, not then and not now.

We stopped for a tea, at ten cents per cup, and happened to sit next to a young British gentleman. He had just stepped out of a little Austin Healy sportscar. We talked about Austin cars. I’d had good luck with one in Sweden and liked them.

Oh, did I ever wish for a car again? Our earlier forays into the used car market had been most discouraging. The wrecks that I could afford to look at were truly horrible.

We told the furniture store manager to prepare the manufacture of our items and we rode, all three of us, in the Englishman’s two-seater sports car to the dealership where he worked.

“We just traded this in yesterday. 1.5 years old. $ 1.200.”

Austin 1100 1965.

This car was almost new and, even though it was small, all we could ask for.

Again, that was an enormous amount of money, my weekly wage was $ 124.

Back on the job, I told about my purchasing adventures to a Finnish colleague, an immigrant as I was.

He said; “I’ll co-sign on a loan so you can buy the car.”

One more person who deserves a special place in heaven.

We went to the same branch where I now had a furniture loan and my colleague co-signed for one more loan in my name. In effect he took a personal loan with all the money paid out to me. Someone had trust in me.

I picked up the car the next day and some of our furniture arrived that same afternoon.

We had an apartment and wheels. What more could we wish for?

Having arrived with only enough money for the first week, we still had very little.

Everything we undertook for the next to years had to “cost little”.

I had one setback, though.

Our little daughter, born after we came to Canada, was just learning to drink out of a cup with a spout. As a conscientious father, I had to disinfect the cup.

I put it in boiling water and it shriveled up to nothing but a small ball of plastic.

At that time I was on a monthly pay-schedule. I would not have any 43 cents to buy another cup for a couple of weeks.

I went into the bedroom and cried a little, all alone, about what a useless father I was, destroying my daughter’s favourite drinking cup.

I bought a new cup that could be disinfected when the next paycheque arrived.

My salary increased over the years and we soon lived much better.