It was early January 1949. We – my grandmother, mother, father and I - had arrived in North America, on the Swedish passenger liner, the ‘Stockholm’ from Goteborg, through New York’s Ellis Island. My father, who had already visited New York City in the 1930’s, took us on a walking tour of Times Square, with its million attractions and the first dark-skinned people I had ever seen.
After a day long train trip to Montreal, we were kindly welcomed and housed at the Soosaar’s apartment in Montreal’s Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, NDG, district, not far from downtown and butting up to the stately mansions of Westmount. My father was immediately offered an officer’s job on the ships of the Canada Steamship Lines and left for two years for the waters off Africa and South America.
We were eventually settled at the Kerson’s house (Villem Kärssen from Kassari) on Harvard Avenue, the home of a cousin of my father who had left Hiiumaa for Canada already before WWI. He had to relearn Estonian, which he accomplished and became the president of the Montreal Estonian Society for a number of years after WWII.
Montreal in January is cold and snow-bound. It didn’t take long for me to assume the life of a typical young boy in the Montreal winter. Hockey!