Dad’s Story – Harry Benjamin Rosenberg – Part Two

by Mel Rosenberg - מל רוזנברג

After fruitful careers as a scientist and inventor I've gone back to what I love most - writing children's books Read More

Joined Oct 2013
Published Books 1560

Dad worked as a boy during the Great Depression. His first job was setting bowling pins in a bowling alley (another historical profession that was replaced by automatic Brunswick machines). He subsequently was a delivery boy for stores (around the age of 13).

In high school Dad became a waiter (this I find hard to believe, but here it is in my notes). He was very good at school, coming in 3^rd out of 48 (about 40 of them being studious Jewish kids). Dad had his appendix out and missed two weeks of school. Life was not easy. There was lots of antisemitism among East European immigrants. power. In “B class” one of his classmates turned out to be a murderer.

Dad’s Dad (my grandfather Elimelech Max)) manufactured denim in Winnipeg. His family was poor but they actually never felt it. The family owned a factory – father was a cutter – brother in law was a presser – another brother in law was a salesman – another sister was a sewing machine operator – another sister was a finisher, another brother was a button hole operator. Another brother was an accountant. A real family operation!

Dad’s Father Max was making $25 a day (the sewing sister was making $30 a day…she was good and gave tickets (I’m assuming the tickets represented her piece work) to friends and they would give it to friends and they would turn them in and give her her money. Internal scamming of the family gesheft! Dad didn’t say which sister, though.

Only one of Dad’s sibs went to university (Ike) after the war and later became an accountant. He went to school with postwar credits. Got a gold medal for being top student at the university. When Ike went to the army, Dad used Ike’s suits. Wore them and when he got back after the war and saw his suits had been worn through he was angry.

Dad got one pair of shoes a year. One day his brother wore Dad’s pair of shoes to school, leaving him shoeless.

The Second World War broke out when Dad was thirteen. I remember Dad telling me that he worked in a cordite factory and inadvertantly pulled the alarm. They had to evacuate the whole factory.

After high school Dad’s family spread out – one sister married a wheat farmer, another sister married a soldier and the house began to empty. Dad’s father Max died in 1940 when Dad was just fourteen. Dad worked hard and got into the University of Manitoba (Winnipeg). He worked throughout his studies, and subsequently flunked first year (another thing I find hard to reconcile). Dad studied civil engineering as a default (not being able to decide on something else). One summer he worked at a zinc and copper mine. In the mine you were underground and had to take a cage up to the surface. On his first day he was cleaning up and suddenly heard explosions – he thought he was in a war…not knowing what to expect. Dad earned a lot of money and came back to Winnipeg. During the coming summers he got a job with the federal Department of Transport (3 summers) in airport construction – runways. He was able to use some of his engineering knowledge to test materials for their density.

I remember Dad’s stories of working on the railroad. He was a cook’s helper. The employees there were antisemitic and sometimes gave him hot plates to purposely scald his hands. The train once let him out in Halifax (or Montreal, can’t recall) with 25 cents in his pocket.

Dad also worked summers surveying in Northern Canada. He once told me that there was a creek named after him, Harry Creek. It turns out there is such a creek in Northern Ontario. There is also one in B.C. but I suppose that’s not the one. Unless Dad had two creeks named after him. During those months Dad would portage with local native Canadians. The lakes were infested with mosquitos. Dad used to talk about the birds (jacks or something) that would drop more crumbs than they would pick up. There was also the story of Dad’s finding a can of kosher meat. The lady he was staying with wanted to surprise him and fried it in butter!

During the last year of University Dad met our Mom, Faigel (Dad called her “Faye” several times during the interview, which I find endearing), at a Habonim meeting. She came from a completely different background. It was love at first sight. This was in 1946. Dad graduated in 1948. His plan was to volunteer to serve in the army in Israel. To that end, he spent two months at an agricultural training school in Ontario for the army. I recall hearing stories from their friends, Asher and Irene Chaikin, that Mom went to visit him. According to Dad she talked him out of it and he ended up going back to be with her in Winnipeg and do a Masters degree. They were married in December, 1949. Dad began his Masters in Water Resources (and concomitantly served as a teaching assistant). The first year they were married he surveyed a hydro station that would be built much later.

Dad studied water resources because he was inspired by an professor in his undergrad years.

Mom and Dad lived a modest lifestyle. After graduating, the same professor had a new job for him to help relieve flooding in Winnipeg. Half a million people had to move because of flooding. Projects recommended were built (the floodway was a great success). Dad worked with eight people on this project and helped figure out cost and design. It became the Greater Winnipeg Floodway.

Mel (that’s me) was born in 1951. When the floodway project was over we moved to Ottawa. Dad mentioned (for whatever reason) that I could hold a conversation at a year and a half. We moved to a new house in the prairies (the prairies of Ottawa). It was on Brookfield . In the 1950s there was a well for water and septic tanks. The house was in the sticks (across from a farm, I remember) and we had to buy our first car. Thos were tough times…the car cost $400. It was unreliable, the heating system was stuck (not a good idea in the Canadian winter). Rena was born four years after me, then three years later, Miriam, and two years later, David (I never realized that there was an arithmetic series here).

Deed to the house on Brookfield. I remember that it was really in the sticks at the end of Ottawa, across from a farm – a real farm.

The original house is still there! They’ve added a second floor and changed the entrance, no ditch, no well. But much the same as I remember it.

Standing with Dad (on left) and my grandmother Regina, in the winter of 1953-4 in front of the house on Brookfield.

It took a while to get used to Ottawa, which had a very small Jewish community (about 5000 people at the time), as opposed to Winnipeg’s vibrant community of 25,000 Jews, with their own newspaper and radio program (both run at various times by my uncle, Noah Witman).

More notes from our conversation: Power system in Manitoba – the economic base of the power system based on the study that he did.. Don Stevens, the head came to Ottawa (he worked with Pearson/Peterson?) The Nelson river needs to be developed. He said “We have problems and resources but we don’t have money to develop”. So they set up a mission of diverting the Churchill River – two rivers can merge to get more power. Had to make presentation for government of Ottawa in order to convince them and raise money.

Needed reservoir (lake of Winnipeg) to provide storage. The water was provided by the Churchill river. The key was a 600 mile long transmission line at 900 KVA. Maximum at the time built anywhere in the world was 700KVA. The higher voltage was needed in order to make it economical. Dad negotiated an agreement with the province of Manitoba to persuade the government to build the transmission line.

He had to go up against the energy board. The fought it because they thought it would be cheaper power station based on soft coal (causes a lot of pollution). Your solution is industrial energy..less pollution. Other problems it creates…like Indian communities who lost winter roads…

Winter energy is more important than summer energy…and this disturbed the flow of it…instead of freezing the roads stayed watery.

The reservoir that needed to be built needed to increase the lake by 12.5 feet. The problem was Indians lived off working with jobs in the lake…water in the lake contained mercury so then they couldn’t use fish. 350 Indians were effected but they were helped.

Dad developed a national flood policy

Reduced floods for some buildings.

Met the prime minster for work.

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