Happy Coming to Canada Anniversary! (with an update)

This is the account of events according to my uncle, Thomas Sobek (young man standing to the left in the group photo)

" ...  (on) Sunday March 12 1967. We had stayed overnight in Utrecht, Holland (see group photo) and proceeded to Amsterdam. We boarded a 2-engine BEA (British European Airways) propeller plane to Heathrow.
... it was Sunday March 12 1967. We had stayed overnight in Utrecht, Holland (see group photo) and proceeded to Amsterdam. We boarded a 2-engine BEA (British European Airways) propeller plane to Heathrow. There we boarded a BOAC (British Overseas Airways Corporation) Boeing 707 Jetliner. On the way up the gangway, because Juergen and Andrea (Schmidt) were carrying so many things for "The Baby" (Daniela), a Canadian said to Juergen: "Why did you not bring your fireplace?"

We arrived at Toronto International Airport in Malton (today Pearson) around mid-day. They herded us with some other new immigrants into a reception hall where Daniela punched out a Yugoslav baby of about the same age. The building we arrived in does not exist anymore, neither does the new terminal that was opened up early in 1968. From there we took an Air Canada 48-seat 4-engined Vickers Viscount turbo-prop to London (Ontario) Airport. Juergen, do you remember the taxi we took? I was very disappointed because I expected a luxurious ride. It was the Checker Cab Company (not Checker Limos) that brought us to London's best hotel, 8-storey Hotel London, Dundas and Wellington, $ 7.00 per night, 80 cents for ham and egg breakfast served on silver platters the next morning (I didn't eat the breakfast, I was too cheap). The cab was a rattling light brown 1961 Pontiac Laurentian with retrofit black vinyl upholstery. The driver was a middle-aged Anglo ....

The next morning, Monday, March 13 1967 life in Canada began. "

My father (young man in the middle holding "the baby") followed up on Thomas' recollection with: 

"Well it was much like you (Thomas) remembered. I had forgotten Daniela's right hook to the poor little girls chin. Well she was not that much smaller then Daniela. The most vivid memory is still the cold and the blue sky. And how badly people were dressed, well old fashioned. For Andrea it was particular funny to see young women dressed like her mother dressed 30 years earlier, while she was wearing mini skirts that became fashionable a year after our arrival. I still shiver thinking how cold our bus ride was out to Spivak's plant. And it was so far out of town! For our 50th maybe a party? Its only 2 years away and we could have the party later in the year or in Florida. Think about it. I also remember that the first people we had contact with all spoke Russian or Ukrainian and that our English was better then theirs. I still like to see what ever photos any one has. Juergen"

posted by Daniela Schmidt