“It is as always,” Papa said. “They will help each other, like we help each other.”
“Hello there! Do you not have a kind word for an old man?” A small man with a long beard and familiar droop in his shoulders called out in Yiddish to the family. He stood next to a peddler’s cart with an impatient young horse, stamping against the noise of the crowd.
“Who is that, Papa?” asked Ziporah.
“That is your Zaida!” Baba shouted and then burst into tears. Picking up her skirts, she ran for all she was worth. The others stood and watched the old man sweep his wife into his arms and hold her as if he was hanging on to life itself. He kissed her and held her out to look again at her as if he held a miracle in his arms. Then Baruch laughed out loud in a way that shed the many long years of loneliness. Holding each other tight the couple turned to the children.
“And who are these handsome young people?” Baruch teased, embarrassed at his tears.
Zev introduced each of them, from oldest to youngest and expressed his delight in his strong, wonderful family.
Baruch looked carefully into each of the faces of the grandchildren he was finally meeting, and God smiled back at him through their eyes. The old man shook his head. He cleared his throat.
“That’s enough now. Now we go home.” His heart was bursting with happiness at the thought that he would have his dear, beautiful Bayla by his side for the rest of his life. That he was also blessed to hear the name Zaida, from these fine children, his grandchildren, was almost too much.
Zev and the children made quick work of stowing the little bundles and the wooden trunk in the wagon. Baruch turned and started to whistle an old tune as he helped Bayla take her seat next to him.
“Zaida! Zaida!” Isaac cried. “What is the name of the horse?”
“She has a good Canadian name,” answered Baruch. “Queenie.”
Baby Mendel was the only one who held back. Still warily sizing up his father, he was even more hesitant with his grandfather.
“Come, now, Mendel,” Hannah laughed as she tickled the chubby baby. “You will soon get used to the voices of men. Your grandfather has waited too many years to meet his grandchildren.”
“Come along,” said Zaida. “We go now to our new home on Patrick Street. I will show you the synagogue on the way. It is very close to here.” The little cart, now heavily laden with the family, rode along Fonseca and turned right onto a very wide and dusty street.
“Papa, I’ve never seen a street so big across. It would be hard to throw a rock from one side all the way to the other side,” said Isaac.
“It is true. This is Main Street and it is the mud that makes it so wide,” Zev told him.
“The mud? That sounds silly, Papa!”
“It’s a BOOBY MEISTER!” shouted Aaron. Zaida, who had been quietly enjoying the conversation, suddenly burst out laughing. He laughed so hard and so long that soon everyone was laughing.
“You mean a little nonsense story, Aaron?” Baba said to her red-faced grandson who quickly nodded. “The way to say it is bubbe meiser, but I think I like your way better.”
“Well is it a funny story, Papa?” Aaron wanted to know.
“It’s a true story,” Papa answered enthusiastically. “I don’t know how funny it is, but it will answer the riddle of why the streets are so wide. Do you see down there is a cart with very large wheels pulled by oxen? It is called a Red River ox cart. There are many still here. They are very good way to move slowly but steadily to where you need to go, especially if it is wet and muddy, because even if you have to go slowly, you will never get stuck with those big wheels and big, patient animals. The mud here in Winnipeg is the worst I have ever seen. The name “Winnipeg” even comes from the name the Indians use for mud. In the springtime especially, it is easy to get stuck. The English call it prairie gumbo. I won’t tell you the word that it is called by just about everyone who gets stuck in it. It’s not nice for children to say. In the summer the mud turns to dust. Today is not so bad, but soon you will see that when even a tiny bit of wind is in the air, the dust is so thick behind the cart that the people behind choke into their sleeves. So, now who can guess how the mud makes the road wide?” he asked.
Ziporah strained to see up Main Street one way, and then the other. She saw lots of carts riding side by side.
“If the carts are next to each other, then no one chokes from the dust!” she shouted and Isaac laughed.
“Whoever heard such a stupid thing?” he teased his sister.
Baruch laughed and smiled at his grandson. This one had a thing or two to learn, but he seemed to be a good boy.
“Your sister is right,” said Zev. “The roads are wide here because people ride beside each other to avoid the dust. You will see that Portage Avenue, which we will see in the coming days, is even wider. You can put sixteen carts beside each other. And I’m told that in the old days you would see the carts moving that way through Winnipeg on their way west. It’s been that way for over thirty years, when there were just a couple of hundred fur traders living here. Now all we have left of the old times is the souvenir of the wide roads and Red River ox carts, like those you see.
“I think this is a very interesting place to live, Papa,” said Isaac, as they turned left onto Henry Street.
“It is that. Now here coming up is King Street and we have a fine synagogue, already six years on this corner. This is the Shaarey Zedek, where Zaida is spending time teaching and learning,” Zev said with obvious pride. “You, too, will come to study soon, yes?”
This led to many more questions, one on top of another. Baruch was overcome with joy. “Children, have patience. We cannot tell every story all at once,” he laughed. “In time you will know all of the answers, and all of the stories. I want you should know what we have done in keeping our ways, yes? But, today is for settling in your new home, no?”
A few minutes later, the wagon stopped in front of a tiny wooden house, one in a row of other little houses that appeared to have popped out of the bald prairie along with the dandelions. Hannah’s mouth dropped open. There were hollyhocks growing in the small patch of a front yard. And while there were no trees, there was a neat and orderly vegetable garden on the side of the house.
“It looks like a “just new” house,” she said at last. “This is beautiful,” she smiled at Zev.
The family crowded into the house filled with excitement and appraised the clean little rooms.
To Baruch, the many years of sacrifice were suddenly worth everything. The crowded little house was spilling over with the joy of having his wife and this large excited family before him. To have this reunion and to have succeeded at long last in his quest to bring his family out of Russia were deeply humbling. His life had taken an excruciatingly difficult path, filled with losses, loneliness, deprivation and much cruelty. Now he stood before God with his heart brimming with gratitude absorbing the holiness of this moment. He held his hands up to quiet them.
“First, please come and we will sing the Shehecheyanu to give thanks for our miracle, yes?”
They joined together and in one voice sang the ancient Hebrew blessing.
Baruch atah adonai eloheinu melech ha’olam
Shehecheyanu v’kiy’manu v’higyanu lasman hazeh. Amen.
Bayla looked into her husband’s eyes and reflected on the words as she sang them. “Blessed are You, Adonai our God, Ruler of the Universe who has given us life, sustained us, and allowed us to reach this moment in time.”
She believed with all her heart that God had indeed sustained them and brought them together in Winnipeg to reach this moment in time.
Then the exploration of the tiny home began in earnest. The rented house had four rooms, two small bedrooms for the two couples, a front room, and a kitchen. A small wood-burning stove sat between the two front windows. The children staked out their sleeping places. The boys would have the front room, which Hannah laughingly insisted on calling the parlor, and Ziporah would m
ake her bed near the kitchen stove.
The kitchen was in the back of the house. Against the outside wall there was an iron cook stove. A wood box and small table were next it and on the adjacent wall, a cupboard and work stand. Near the door, a tidy washstand held a metal bowl with a pitcher. Two towels hung neatly on the rack attached to it. Zev showed them that the kitchen door leading outside actually opened into a well-organized porch-like extension on the house. Firewood was stacked along the wall, and Zev explained that in the winter only this entrance would be used so that the cold air would not rush into the house. He showed them all the trap door, with its big iron ring, in the kitchen. Taking hold of the ring, he pulled the door up to reveal stacks of potatoes, turnips, and carrots in the dugout under the kitchen. Baba nodded her head with approval, and Hannah was filled with happiness. She said she couldn’t wait to fill the storage space with jars of fruits and pickles she and Baba would can for the winter. After the many weeks of travel, the family was delighted with their new surroundings.
They turned their attention to the backyard where there was a small shed and six chickens scavenging about in a pen. On one side of the shed was a stable for Queenie. And in back of it was a small workroom with Papa’s carpentry tools.
Next to the stable was a chicken coop with a sharply angled roof and two rows of nests. “We will never go hungry with the number of eggs we have coming from those chickens,” said Papa. He was quickly overwhelmed with volunteers to collect them.
Along the back lane was a narrow structure with a slanted roof similar to the chicken coop. “Is that the outhouse?” Aaron wanted to know.
“It is, though here the English call it a ‘box closet’. You see how crowded the street is. Each yard is only twenty-five feet or so across and perhaps forty feet deep. In the old country we used to dig a deep hole, and every few years when the hole was filled, we dug a new hole and moved the little outhouse over top,” Zev explained. “Here, the houses are too crowded to do that. So the English who run the city came up with the plan to put a box in there that has be the emptied by the city workers. It is emptied not so often as you will think is good, Hannah, I tell you that now. So this is how they call it a box closet. In the fancy houses they have a room in the house with a bathtub, a sink, and a porcelain toilet with water for flushing. This they call a water closet because the waste is flushed with the water from the house to the sewer. You understand?”
“I understand that one day I would very much like a water closet,” observed Hannah, nodding as she considered the backyard. “Where is the well?”
“This, too, is different. All of these homes on this street and the two near us, which are called Lizzie and Laura, share the water from a well that is two blocks from here. I bring the water in a barrel.”
Hannah took her time as she surveyed her surroundings and saw in every detail how hard her husband and his father had worked to make this home for her and the family.
“Zev, this will be a wonderful house for us,” she said, encircling her husband with her arms. “We will be very happy here. Now show me the garden.”
Chapter Twelve
The Immigrant Problem
August 6, 1897
Roger Harrington’s week of meetings in Winnipeg had yet to pay off, and he hoped that his session with Rupert Willows would be the turning point. He checked his pocket watch and rushed out of the Manitoba Hotel, happy to see a string of cabs waiting. There was too much at stake to risk being late for his appointment.
“Do you know Ravenscraig Hall?” he asked the driver as he climbed into the carriage. “It’s on Assiniboine Avenue in Armstrong’s Point.”
“Yes, of course, sir,” answered the Irish cabbie as he took up the reins. “That would be the home of Alderman Willows.”
“That’s right. How long to get there, do you think?”
“Oh, I’d say about no more than twenty minutes, sir,” the driver responded cheerfully as he eyed the fine clothes of his customer. “Would you care for a wee bit of a tour of downtown, sir? No extra charge. There’s great things goin’ on with all of the building and all,” he enthused, his gold tooth glinting in the morning sun. “Yes, indeed, Winnipeg is going to be the Chicago of the North, without doubt.”
“No, thank you. Not this time,” Harrington smiled patronizingly at the chatty driver. Everyone had a hand out for a tip in this town. “Just the direct route would be fine, thank you.” Harrington was already on edge and had no interest in hearing yet one more person infected with Winnipeg boosterism talk his ear off. He needed time to think through his presentation. So, he pulled out a newspaper, polished his reading glasses and settled back into his seat, pretending to read. His most important work had yet to be completed, and he was afraid his career might be in peril upon his return to Ottawa.
As an emissary for the federal immigration minister in Ottawa, Harrington’s primary responsibility was to help ensure the success of the government’s ambitious immigration program. The goal was to get great numbers of immigrants to settle the prairies and create productive farms. In this round of meetings in Winnipeg, his chief task was to inspire support for the onslaught of foreigners who would soon be arriving.
It was a confounding situation. Newspapers, politicians and cabbies alike were consistently boastful and positive about how quickly the Western cities of Winnipeg, Calgary, and Edmonton were growing. Everything seemed perfect on the surface, but inevitably in his discussions he would hear complaints about the foreign-born immigrants. The problem was enormous. It had become obvious that it would be immigrants from East Europe who would be the backbone of the farming industry in Western Canada, yet these were the people least likely to find open arms to greet them.
Here in the Keystone Province, as Manitoba was known, Harrington needed commitments from civic leaders, local businesses, and community do-gooders to assist in the transition of the immigrants and to help them get settled in the new country. So far, his discussions in Winnipeg were going poorly.
Aside from the odd charitable organization, the local people were quite vocal about their preference for English-speaking people from Ontario, Great Britain, and the United States take up the plow in the West. The resistance against the Slavic newcomers, in particular, was already firmly established. Greenhorns, they were called. Most were very poor, more than half were illiterate, and almost none spoke any English. Prejudice had quickly hardened against them, prompted by the simple fact that their customs were considered backwards at best, and at worst, boisterously inappropriate.
Religion, too, was often an issue for the many cultures migrating out of east and central Europe. Harrington was repeatedly asked, who were these people and what customs did they have? He had come to learn that one dared not be the first to say the word “Jew” out loud, for fear of starting an argument.
There were other complications associated with the ambitious plan to populate the countryside. To get enough capable farmers, Canada was going to have to cope with its cities being choked with immigrants who could not, or would not, farm. In addition, there was a disproportionate flood of men entering the country. Many of the immigrants were married and expected to send for their families as soon as they were settled. There were also large numbers of single men looking for opportunity in the New World.
This lack of women and children in the West had given rise to the seamier side of the economy, involving booze halls and brothels. The social reformers and temperance movement leaders were becoming particularly concerned about the number of saloons and houses of ill-fame that were popping up like weeds in communities all along the rail line.
Almost every politician and business leader Harrington had spoken to seemed to be too busy with his own worries to think about new settlers. Their message was clear: the foreign born were reluctantly welcome. Getting them settled would be the federal government’s problem.
It was going to be extremely challenging for all concerned.
The driver turned the carriage into
the large gates of Armstrong’s Point and the gelding clipped smartly along beneath the young elms and willows of the stately neighborhood. Harrington was impressed. He pulled out his pocket watch and saw that he was going to be about a quarter of an hour early for his appointment with Mr. Willows. He hoped it would go well.
They turned through a second gate and Harrington choked when he saw the mammoth dark house appear before them. Oh, dear God. Was this Ravenscraig?
Harrington regarded the ornate patterns in the silver tray before him. He took his time in carefully placing his calling card in it.
“Mr. Willows is on the telephone,” the butler informed him, and then motioned to a large, well-upholstered chair, indicating that Harrington should sit. Harrington looked at the chair and then turned to ask a question, but found himself alone. It was as though the butler had vanished.
Harrington shook himself back to his task at hand. He consulted his notes and went through his prepared talk in his mind one more time. He imagined Mr. Willows leaning forward to hear more. He would tell them about the earnest hard work to clear the land at Stuartburn and of the fine quality of the immigrants settling the land. He was determined to win over the alderman.
Twenty-five minutes later, well prepared and anxious to get his meeting underway, Harrington set his papers back into his case and turned his attention to the details of the stylish front hall of the Willows home. He was particularly impressed with the circular stairway and the rich choice of furnishings and artwork. He quite liked the chandelier and the way the light from the windows above the front door danced on the crystal. He checked his watch again. Another ten minutes had passed. He took a deep breath and stood to stretch his legs. He moved toward a massive portrait of Rupert Willows staring down at him. He recognized the alderman from a photograph he had seen in the morning newspaper. In the painting, Willows was portrayed in full riding costume, a scarlet jacket handsomely cut to accent his broad shoulders and athleticism. With the hounds to the side, he posed with perfect posture next to a black thoroughbred.
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