Schools
Object id:
LF.39475 B&W photograph depicts an interior view of a company built schoolhouse at Canadian Forest Products Ltd. - Englewood Logging Division Woss logging camp with children and teacher.
Date:
[1947]
Source:
Landauer, Barbara
Rights:
JMABC 
Object id:
LF.39474 B&W photograph depicts an exterior of a company built schoolhouse at a Canadian Forest Products Ltd. - Englewood Logging Division Woss logging camp with children and teacher.
Date:
[1947]
Source:
Landauer, Barbara
Rights:
JMABC RM: I was very much involved with the start of the Richmond Delta Jewish Community Association, back in the 1970s, I’m really going back here but…
BG That’s okay.
RM: It was, I think it was about 1970, a group of us that lived in Richmond, we had, we met at the home of the Rabbi, I’ve forgotten the name of, at the time and we decided that we wanted to have a school, a Jewish school set up in Richmond. And what came of that meeting was the formation of the Richmond Delta Jewish Community Association. We had a meeting, trying to get all the Jewish people together, at the Jewish Community Centre, I can’t give you the exact date but different people took on positions, my former husband became ways and means, I was nominated and I was, accepted, the position, of becoming the first education chairman for which was then Richmond Jewish, which then became, okay well I’m messing up here.
But we had many meetings at different people’s homes, I can’t tell you how many meetings were held at our home and how many cakes I baked for different functions. We realized that we needed a Jewish school and we realized that we needed different places for our High Holidays, for, you know the High Holidays, and various other events. So, I was education chairman, so I had a committee made up of many teachers. [Laughs] And as I said before, thank goodness I didn’t become a teacher, but my committee were mainly teachers. So, we managed to find, a space in a church in Richmond and we decided that we were going to rent that space, and I said, it wasn’t what was important, because people challenged us, “How could we have a Jewish school in a church?” And I responded, because the price was right [laughs]. But what I said was, it didn’t matter about the external walls, it was what we created within those walls.
BG: Absolutely.
RM: So we managed to have a nursery school, a kindergarten, and an after school day school, two days a week. The third day was held in my former husband’s and my home, on a Sunday. So, that, I, I think I spent four or five years in that position and we managed to really get things off the ground in those early years. We rented different spots in different hotels for High Holiday services, it was a fun type of thing, we were actually creating something from nothing, at all our meetings, so we would plan different events…We were trying to, besides the school, we were trying to get youth organizations going, we would meet with, “Oh, you have nothing for my children.” And then we’d go back to people and it was “Oh well, you didn’t have something before so you know, my kid’s became involved, it’s too late for them to be involved.” That type of person, of course, really expected everything to be handed to them. And they weren’t prepared to, to help out. But that was also a very exciting time. It was, we were building something from nothing. It created a wonderful sense of community. And we, you know I hired David Ruben to become our senior teacher, to be our Bar Mitzvah, Bat Mitzvah teacher, and we had other teachers, certainly nursery school, kindergarten, all of course with Jewish content. So this certainly was a great boost, for me. It was a confidence builder, getting the school off the ground, no one expected us to get the school going, you know, there were different things we had to speak to, we had to speak to the fire department, and this department and that department. At the time we didn’t get much money from Federation, so everything was just, but it was an exciting time and certainly a confidence builder.
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GL: …So she [Gerald Lecovin’s mother] came out in ‘47 and we lived on Angus Drive, 5975 Angus Drive, which is 43rd and Angus. We lived next door to—what’s the name of the guy, what’s the name of the bridge that goes across the water in Richmond, not the Oak Street Bridge, the other one?
JM: Arthur Laing?
GL: Arthur Laing. We lived next door to Arthur Laing. [Laughs]. And he was our next door neighbour and at that time was head of the BC Liberal Party although at that time he never, they were never in power while he was alive. And I went to Magee High School. I started in grade—you too? Oh, great—I started in, I guess it was Grade 10 and at the time because of one machination and another I was about two years younger than everyone else. So I was a little past 13 when I went to Magee and I was very short and in fact when they, when my mother took me to register me at Magee, they said, “No madam, you have the wrong school, you want the school kitty corner,” which of course was Maple Grove, which was a public school. I was more that size. But I was duly registered, and the principal, having a great sense of humour, decided he would marry me up with someone who’d take me around and show me the ropes and things like that ‘cause, you know, I was an out-of-towner and everything. And he brought in a fellow called Jack Nelson, and Jack Nelson was six foot five, and we built up a friendship and thereafter were known as Mutt and Jeff, and I don’t know if you remember the old comics of the ‘30s and ‘40s, but there was this couple Mutt and Jeff, he was very tall and the other guy was very short. And we eventually became, they decided to open up a tuck shop at Magee, to sell pop and things like that, and we took it over, and so we were a well known couple at the school. The Jewish community then was essentially divided between, I think the divisional line was perhaps either Oak Street or Cambie. The ‘haves,’ the people who had, the upper middle class, lived on this side, and the lower middle class lived on the other side. Most of the kids my age who were Jewish went to Magee, a few went to Prince of Wales, maybe the odd one went to the other schools, depending on where the parents lived, but those were the big enclaves, and on the eastern side most of the Jewish kids went to King Ed. And, so that was sort of, a kind of a division. The Jewish kids pretty well, I would say, they kept to themselves, where we were, they associated with themselves most of the time, although they were active in sports and other things.
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ID: And what about your teachers? Were there any of your teachers that were outstanding that you remember in high school?
HL: In high school, yes, there was….
ID: That influenced you in your future?
HL: One, two teachers actually were outstanding. One was a younger woman who taught math and taught algebra and geometry. I loved geometry and I just ate it up and that was very easy for me. And the other one who was outstanding was somebody called Miss Brandon and she was much older and she taught English and French and I thought she was outstanding because by the time I went to university and took the first year French I really had learned most of that in Grade 12 and so that was relatively easy.
ID: Harold, I used…we used to have Miss Brandon as our French teacher, French and English teacher. Well, she taught everything, in Cupar.
HL: Really?
ID: Yes and when she left Cupar I guess she went to Kamsack. Can you believe we had the same teacher, that’s amazing!
HL: I thought she was outstanding.
ID: And what about Jewish education? Was there an opportunity for that in Kamsack?
HL: Yes, well you know at one time there were approximately 35 Jewish families in Kamsack, that’s at the height. It would be in the late ‘30s I suppose. And we had one man there who served as the rabbi, the shochet [kosher butcher], the teacher, the cantor all rolled into one. Rabbi…Reverend Oland was his name and he stayed there until the community really dwindled and dwindled in the early ‘40s and then ultimately went to Saskatoon. He did teach me some elements of Hebrew and I suppose he also must have taught me something relative to my Bar Mitzvah although I don’t remember having a Bar Mitzvah with a lot of simcha [celebrations] in Kamsack. It was during the war years and I presume that those type of activities took a back seat.
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Kent: What did you do at recess?
Karby: Whatever, we used to play tag, a lot of hopscotch, a lot of hanging
around…
Kent: You mean just talking with your friends?
Karby: Yeah, just hanging out. There was always a teacher on duty, always someone in the playground. There are things I don't want to tell you. We were mean sometimes, you know how kids can be. But mostly, I'd say mostly the girls played jump rope, a lot of doubles jump rope with the big skipping rope..
Kent: When you say ‘doubles’ do you mean two ropes or just one rope, two people jumping?
Karby: One rope sometimes two people jumping, sometimes two ropes but one of these long [ropes], you know, that it takes two people to hold. And we did a lot of hopscotch although there was only one small section where you could draw the squares because I'm sure the rest of the thing was gravel.
Kent: You mean you drew your own squares?
Karby: Yeah, sure, of course with chalk, absolutely. And we made our own little beaded throws. I can't tell you how many hours of our childhood were spent making hopscotch throws, you know, beaded, and I don’t even remember now what they were out of, but all kinds of varieties. We did a lot of roller skating and sometimes we'd bring our roller skates and skate in the yard but that was rare because it meant schlepping them to school.
Kent: Yeah, you said the yard was gravel.
Karby: It must have not all been gravel because if we drew the hopscotch it couldn't have been gravel so maybe I’m not…maybe it was just concrete, some kind of cement of some sort. I really don’t remember now. Maybe it’s part and part. I don’t know somebody else might remember that…Once in a while…No, that was about it. We were never allowed off the school grounds. Once in a while we'd go to the park, not Douglas Park but the little Braemar Park, if the weather was nice sometimes.
Kent: You went with the teachers?
Karby: Yeah, with the teacher, we’d have our lunch in the park.
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CL: What do you remember about the early days on the farm?
AS: I remember visiting, having people come to the house, you know neighbours they’d walk. Saturdays, the fun we’d have was just going to visit neighbours. I remember I didn’t get to start school until about eight years old. And I had to walk three miles. Used to milk a cow before I went to school. And walked three miles with my brother Ben and Fannie and before I got there I was pretty well worn out, they had to hang on to my arms to help me along to get there.
CL: Did you…What happened in the winter with the snow and everything?
AS: They didn’t have school in the winter. They didn’t have school. I know when the boys went to school, they had to herd cattle. And one day one would go to school and the next day another one would go to school. There were no [fences] then.
CL: What do you remember of the school? What did the school look like?
AS: Well, I know we were the only Jewish children, I think. Going to school the gentile child used to be curious about us. They liked to look in our lunch boxes. Like Pesach we would have maybe different food and they used to sort of, you know, kind of make a little fun of us.
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KK: When I was 20 I had to go to the army, that was the regulations for the tsar’s time. And it was in that year, in 1914, that was a matter of…like talking that a war would break out pretty soon. So I decided either to go to the army or better go either to United States or Canada. And I left my wife and child and I went to Canada because my mother had a brother in Montreal. To make this story short I would like to say that coming to Montreal I…went to, to my uncle. It was the first day of Pesach. I arrived in Montreal from Halifax. My uncle took me to the shul at Yontif. And introduced me to the Rabbi Garber. He was the chief rabbi in Montreal and I was very much acquainted…At that time my voice was so good I [inaudible], from time to time. And delighted me the way I doven [Yiddish for pray] for Yontif. So one time the Rabbi Garber, Simcha Garber he asked me what I was going to do. Well, I said I didn’t decided yet but, you know, I had something to do. He suggested to me, “You are a yeshiva bocher [Yiddish for young student], scholarly person, and you could sing. I would advise you…How’s about to have some Hebrew lessons, to give Hebrew lessons…”
MF: So he didn’t suggest that you become a cantor? When you said you were a dovening that means in English you were a cantor.
KK: No, not really that. Not a cantor but really a teacher.
MF: A teacher.
KK: A teacher. To take Hebrew and to teach Hebrew. After Pesach he says, “First I’ll give you my two eyniklekh…
MF: Grandchildren.
KK: Grandchildren. And to give them lessons. And his grandchildren was one of the really famous people in Montreal at that time, Rosenberg, Greenberg, and some others. They had a big family. Even at present time, his son, Garber, was the president of the Congress, of the Jewish Congress, Rosenberg is. And I was, I succeeded in having so many lessons that was really impossible for me to handle them all. I went over to the board of education at the Talmud Torah to inquire if I could change instead of to give lessons to go around to one place to another during the winter time it was very hard and cold, so they asked me to come over to the Talmud Torah, and I was then a teacher of the Talmud Torah in Montreal. Two years later I became principal of the Talmud Torah in Montreal.
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Interviewer: Jean Gerber & Cyril E. Leonoff
JW: So it was after my second year of university here that I decided to go into medicine which made my mother and father very happy.
CL: Did this school have a pre-med at that time?
JW: No, no. No, couldn’t take any…I stayed here ‘til the end of my second year then I tried to get some pre-med and they had nothing here. They…In those days you had to have the equivalent of high school Latin to get into medical school. And I hadn’t taken Latin, I had taken French in high school. Only two schools in Canada that had a preliminary course in Latin which was the equivalent of high school Latin; one was University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon and the other was Halifax, Dalhousie. So Saskatoon, I’d come from there so I went back to Saskatoon and took my pre-med there. And then I got into the University of Toronto Medical School.
JG: Now these were days towards the end of the Depression beginning of World War II when Jews did not enter medical school so easily.
JW: No, very difficult.
JG: How did you overcome this quota system?
JW: I just got very good marks. Didn’t get such high marks at the University of British Columbia. I was too busy fooling around, having a good time. But once I decided to go into medical school, my final year in my pre-med year I really got very good marks.
JG: Were there other Jewish—I guess at that time it would have been mostly boys, some girls maybe—trying to get in?
JW: Out of 120 in our class there were five girls. That’s all.
JG: So they would have had to be very good.
JW: They were very good and they were nice girls.
JG: Any other Jews went into medical school with you?
JW: Yes, yes, there were a few, not many. The University of Toronto strangely enough, although the city was an anti-Semitic city, and there many of the doctors were personally anti-Semitic and showed it, the policy of the school wasn’t that bad. I had difficulty finding a place to stay because many houses had ‘restricted’ signs on them. And restricted didn’t mean blacks because there were no blacks, restricted meant there were no Jews allowed. So I had difficulty finding a place to live.
JG: Where did you finally settle?
JW: Well, when I went to Toronto I stayed at the YMCA which is right near the University of Toronto in Toronto. And I stayed there, it was a dollar a day I remember. And I wandered around looking for a place. The university had lists of places that you could go to board and room. I wandered around to a lot of these places and a lot of them had restricted signs on them. And I was getting very discouraged.
I was in swimming one day, you know, at the Y, you go swimming with no clothes on, the YMCA in those days. So I see another guy swimming, he looked Jewish to me.
JG: [Laughing].
JW: So I got talking to him and I was telling him my problems and he turned out to be a medical student also and living in Toronto. And he says, “Well,” he said, “look, I’ve got a place for you to live.” He says, “There’s a Jewish medical fraternity.” He says, “Come and live at our place.” So I lived there for five years, cost $35 a month.
JG: What was the name of the fraternity?
JW: Phi Delta Epsilon and that is an international, Jewish—only Jewish students…
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Interviewer: Naomi Katz & Cyril E. Leonoff
CL: Well on the Prairies—Winnipeg, populated by Russian Jews primarily and Eastern European Jews, Yiddish was the language spoken. I have the impression that in Vancouver Hebrew was emphasized. Did you speak Yiddish with your parents?
NB: No, no, no. Until we the children introduced English into the home, we knew no language except Jewish. And one of the things that you and your generation might find a little difficult unless you’ve thought about it seriously is the problems that youngsters who don’t have English have when they go to school. I recall going to school and the second day that I was there they called a roll and as they called the roll each of the children had to say ‘present.’ Well, when they called my name and I wouldn’t say ‘present.’ When the teacher asked me why I wouldn’t tell her and she punished me, and she asked me to stay after school and I told her that the only reason that I wouldn’t say ‘present’ was that I wasn’t going to give her a present because that was the only connotation that I knew present in. [Laughter]. That’s why I think that some of these intelligence tests are so ridiculous. Because connotations is all important.
CL: So you spoke Yiddish in the home and when you started to go to school you learned English.
NB: Then my parents learned as well. And ultimately…
BB: That is always the history. The children learned, came home, wouldn’t speak the Yiddish and so the parents had to learn English.
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