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!
(Read more: Estonian Life No. 50/51 2020 paber- and PDF/digi)
Laas Leivat, Toronto
