The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Ida Gross was born in Heldsdorf, Romania in 1923. Her family, along with her parents, consisted of three brothers and two sisters. Her father had a farm and that was how he supported his family. (Ida's home was in the region of Transylvania and about 100 miles from Count Dracula's castle! Yes, there was actually a Count Dracula, but not the blood sucking vampire that he is portrayed as today, but he was not a very kind man according to Ida!) Ida's father was a medic during the First World War and when he returned from the war, all Ida knows is that he had lost the farm. The details are uncertain. The family moved to a city called Kronstadt in Romania in 1928. (This city is first mentioned in the annals of history in 1235!) The house in which they rented was surrounded by many children, all of whom spoke different languages or dialects. They played together every day and Ida recalls, "It was not unusual for us to speak three languages in one sentence!" She said her mother used to marvel at how they could even understand one another, but they did, and got along very well. By the time it was Ida's turn to go to school, she could speak four languages. (The date that her school was first established was in the history annals as 1388! See 'Dozen' P.# Con't from P.# The history books also stated that from 1385 to 1450 there were 77 students from that school who went on to graduate from the University of Vienna!) The school that Ida attended was German. Once she finished her education, she took training as a dental technician. She worked for a dentist for a short time, until he was drafted into the Romanian Army. The hospital was to be moved out of Ida's hometown of Kronstadt. Ida was at loose ends when the German Army came through her city, and she volunteered to work in the military camp as a dental technician, although she was trained and worked as a nursing assistant as well. She was only 17.5 years-old when she signed up. Before she had the chance to tell her parents, her mother heard about it on a bus ride home. Her mother was surprised to hear two women who sat directly in front of her talking about her daughter. Upon her mother's arrival home, Ida was summoned into her mother's bedroom and her mother asked her if the rumours she had heard were true. When Ida replied that they were, her mother stood in silence for a short time and then said, "Fine, you go, but don't you ever complain to me about how hard things are, or ask why did you let me go at such a young age!" Ida said, "I never did!" So, in 1942 at the age of 18 years, Ida was sent to Rostov, Russia where she worked in the military hospital. She was there for two years until Stalingrad fell, and then, "We had to move out and I ended up in Warsaw, Poland." From there, she said, "the units were dissolved, the doctors, nurses and medical staff were sent to different places, and I ended up in Potsdam, Germany, near Berlin. By this time, Ida recalls, "Berlin was in flames. I was working in a military hospital when I had an appendix attack. I ended up the only patient in a room on the third floor, after I had my surgery. After surgery I heard the air raid sirens going off, I was laying in bed and could hear this roaring noise. I looked out the window, from my bed, and saw waves and waves of British and American planes flying over, and then I saw the bombs all falling down. At first the noise was thundering and then the building began to shake, the walls were shaking, then my bed, then my whole body. I pulled the sheet up over my head and told myself I would survive! The nurse on duty thought the orderly had taken me to the bomb shelter and the orderly thought the nurse had taken me to the bomb shelter, so there I was all alone!" "It was a terrifying experience, but I did survive!" she goes on. "Berlin was almost destroyed." Another time, Ida relates how she and some others had run to the bomb shelter when the air raid sirens had gone off, only to find that after they got into the shelter both ends of the shelter had been bombed and that they were literally buried alive! She said it was nine hours before they were dug out. On another occasion of bombing Ida tells of how a neighbour friend's home had been bombed and there was absolutely nothing left, "not a stitch of her remained to bury!" Ida goes on to say, "It is the women and children on both sides that should get the medals. They had to survive bombings day and night, day after day, sometimes for weeks on end. They are the ones that are courageous!" Ida said, "It is not the people in the street who want the war. The Heads of State, who wanted the war, should be put into a room and be made to fight it out, not the everyday people who end up losing their homes, their lives and everything!" After the war Ida got a job working in the Volkswagen car factory in Wolfsburg, Germany, where the "Beetle" was being made. Then one day, on her birthday, she arrived home from work to find a dozen red roses and a beautiful birthday card and a poem that had been translated from Latin to German. It was from a man who also worked in the same factory, Fred Kohlmeyer. That evening he came to visit Ida and that visit changed the course of Ida's life. In 1951 Fred told Ida that he was immigrating to Canada and wanted her to marry him and come too. Ida had cold feet, and said, "You go and when you get settled and find work, send for me, and then I will come!" Seeing Fred off on the ship filled Ida with regret and she thought she would never hear from him again, that he would find someone else and not send for her. She wished then that she had listened to him. However, Fred was true to his word, he wrote her regularly about his travels across Canada and the jobs he found. Till finally one day, he wrote her telling her that he had settled in a place called Flin Flon working as an auto mechanic at Uptown Motors, earning $1.50 an hour and that he was sending her her papers to come and join him. Ida went to the Immigration office in Germany to have her physical and get her visa. In the meantime, Fred had complied with the Immigration Department and proved that he had a job, a bank account, a place to live and that he and Ida would be married within four weeks of her landing in Canada, or she would be sent back! So Ida made her arrangements, quit her job, said her goodbyes to her family and set off on a ship to Canada. She could not speak a word of English and was as excited as she was apprehensive. On the trip over, she was in a cabin with six other women. They were all seasick, but luckily Ida wasn't, so she spent her time on deck, when the weather was good. See 'Marvelled' P.# Con't from P.# Finally arriving at port in Montreal, from there Ida boarded a train with the six other women who were on the ship with her, and they stopped in Toronto where the six would leave her to make a new life for themselves in Toronto. Ida travelled on to Winnipeg and then switched trains to come to Flin Flon. All the while Ida was marvelling at the vastness of Canada. Once en route to Flin Flon, a woman who was travelling alone befriended Ida and with a language dictionary and sign language the two women began to communicate. The trip to Flin Flon was 24 hours and Ida realized upon smelling coffee and bacon that she was starving. The woman noticed the look on Ida's face and in sign language communicated that they should go and eat. Once in the dining car, the menu meant nothing to Ida, who could not read it, but a man at the next table was having ham and eggs, so Ida signed that that is what she would have too. Once the meal was over, Ida took out her Canadian money that Fred had sent her to try to pay for her breakfast, when the woman signed to Ida, "No, no, you are my guest, welcome to Canada!" Ida still gets emotional when relating the story. "Imagine," she says, "a total stranger buys me breakfast! That is the moment when I fell in love with Canada!" Ida finally arrived in Flin Flon, with Fred meeting her at the station. They were married November 2, 1952 and lived at 44 Terrace. Ida recalls, "The view there was breathtaking!" She said that their suite was a one bedroom and that there were three other families in the building and they all shared one bathroom. Ida spent much of her time listening to the radio to get used to the sound of English. She said, "I couldn't cook, I couldn't even make coffee, but I learned." "Going to the store was really quite an experience. One day, I thought about the things my mother used to make and I thought I could make stew. So I went to the store and up to the meat counter. Not knowing how to explain what I wanted, I looked at all the cuts of meat until I saw the square cubes of meat. I pointed to the meat I wanted. The butcher said 'stew'. I looked at him and shook my head, 'yes'. He repeated it again and again and finally after about ten tries, I could say the word stew. After that every time I came into the store and the butcher saw me, he called me stew!" she laughs. "I always carried an envelope with me that had my name and address on it so that when I needed to have my groceries delivered, I could give my address." Fred really wanted to get on at HBMS. Even though he was a trained auto mechanic, he was German and the company refused to hire him. However, thanks to Paul Leobel, who went to the management and vouched for him, Fred was finally hired on and worked his way up to be shift boss, when he was forced to take early retirement due to poor health. "We moved to Princess Boulevard (owned by Joe Zoretich)," stated Ida, "once Fred was hired on at HBMS, and in 1953 our first son, Peter, was born. Later in 1955 Klaus was born, then in 1957 Barbara and then in 1958 Michael. Our family was complete! "Our neighbours were Marg and Murray Smith, and close friends were George and Edith Nickel and George and Frances Henning, who co-owned Foto Music Supply. "We bought our own home in 1967 on Whitney," she said. Ida just sold it this fall (2004). Fred passed away in 1986. Ida's son Michael and Lauren live and work in Flin Flon at HBMS. Peter has retired from the Canadian Armed Forces and lives in Ottawa with his family, he has one child. Barbara lives in Edmonton, Alberta with her family of three kids. Klaus lives in Vancouver. Ida took up swimming on the encouragement of her daughter Barbara. Ida was terrified of water due to an accident that had happened to her in her childhood. She gradually got up the courage to get into the pool but stayed in the shallow end for quite some time, gradually going into the deep end. Then she would swim one lap and then another until she has now swam 2,570 miles and is still going strong! Ida also enjoys going out to bingo with her friends. She says, "I don't mind spending the money because I know it stays in the community!" Ida came to the realization this year that she could no longer keep up the grass and didn't really want to shovel snow any more, so she sold her house and moved into an apartment. She has absolutely no plans of ever leaving here. Ida loves Flin Flon, the people and Canada the country, and although she goes back to Romania and Germany occasionally to visit family, she calls Flin Flon, Manitoba, Canada home. Ida laughs, "We are what you might call an international family: I was born in Romania, my husband was born in Czechoslovakia, we met in Germany, and we were married in Canada, and now I am Canadian!" Thank you so much, Ida, for sharing your story! What a courageous and interesting woman you are! Your story gives us an insight as to what the German people have suffered as well, and I am so pleased to call you my friend! Thanks Emily Ridley for suggesting this delightful lady to me!
