When We Worked

For the life we wanted . . .

This is a post about me and my family. Thanks for being curious. Curiosity is the spark that ignites the fire of knowledge. What do other people know? And how did they get here? Let’s find out.

Great Grandma Waelbrock and Great Grandpa John from the 1920s thru the 1940s. Cousins called her Aunt Jennie, Eugenie ran a 600-bird chicken farm and John built dozens of homes during the Depression. That says a lot about what kind of people they were: Entrepreneurs and Providers.

I wrote about my great-grandparents in a post from 2021 - the height of the lockdowns and isolation - and it prompted me to consider this pandemic from another perspective - thiers.

They both lived through the last pandemic - the Spanish Flu of 1918 - and came out on the other side apparently no worse for the wear. Grandma Waelbrock was born in 1898, Grandpa John in 1896. Both were born into families of over 16 siblings each living on the edge of the Canadian Western Frontier at the turn of the last century.

St. Boniface, Winnipeg, Canada was a hotbed of KKK hatred in the late 1800s until the 1920s. The grandparents packed up and moved from there in 1923. Their immigration story is family lore, was completely legal, and provokes many questions. A stance that allows me to stand proud of my roots.

They were Catholics, and their ancestors emigrated to Canada from Belgium to escape autocracy and seek religious freedom. The history of Belgium is tortured and oppressive, with brief respites of liberty from monarchal homicidal fanatics.

I keep thinking about our own dilemmas in the modern age - and how they pale in the light of the real struggles of our predecessors.

Grandpa John and Grandma Waelbrock were Walloons- always thought it interesting when she was a grandma by last name and he was a grandpa by first name. Another great-grandma - Grandma Smith we called by her last name - but we called her son Grandpa Smitty. What is your name for grandparents?

I fell down the fabbit-hole and thank God for all of you that I did! Saves you time and gives you experience. Vicarious is close to Osmosis, so sit back and enjoy. I found this account of the history of the KKK in CANADA. WTF? Canada imported hooded racist morons from America to terrorize Catholics and Jews and others.

This shit is not new. My family was Catholic. I am not. I’m still offended. My family fled one country because they could not practice their beliefs. They were invited to and prospered in a new wilderness. They were hearty stock, and used to hard work. Then, the tides of persecution turned against them. Then they fled again. To Los Angeles. El Sereno to be exact.

In this first period of immigration – coinciding with industrial unrest in Wallonia and population pressure in the Flemish region – Manitoba held out possibilities of building a new and more prosperous life on the 65 hectares of free land then offered as a “homestead”. Few knew the difficulties of pioneering in a strange land, a rigorous climate and a challenging environment physically and socially. Soon a sizable community developed in St. Boniface and small farming hamlets like St. Alphonse, Bruxelles, and Mariapolis emerged in the southwestern part of the province. A visionary French priest, the abbé Jean Gaire, dreamed of a chain of francophone parishes stretching across western Canada and proceeded in his recruiting efforts to attract a number of Walloon settlers from the province of Luxembourg. Walloon glass workers began arriving in Ontario’s nascent industry, while miners took jobs in the collieries of Nova Scotia and Vancouver Island.

The family came for a reason. Freedom, liberty, and freedom and liberty. Because without that, there is nothing else. They are still coming now. To a country that one candidate calls a completely racist country.

They left from there and came to here. In 1923. Could you do that in a car from then?

When we take stock of our COLLECTIVE HISTORY our differences fall by the wayside. We came here as immigrants in a system designed to advance the American society. We can observe that as a fact by the ledgers we discover.

When we work to further ourselves, whatever that work is, we advance. We move forward and find some sort of success. Not always the best scenario, but a ledge, or a hand-hold, to propel further growth. It’s not the mountaintop, it’s the mountain. And we keep climbing, never to be repelled from our summit.

My Family. Great-Great-Grandpa has a mustache I wish I could grow. These pictures make me proud, As all families are proud of their history.

Date Night in 1920.

My parents in 1963.

The United States was a slave-owing empire. So was every society before it. It was the common accepted way of building an empire. Or a Monarchy. By slave labor, many useful institutions of Western Civilization were created or built.

Slavery is humanity. We, at our core, seek to dominate, control, or supplicate others. We just do. It’s our nature. Even The Robot thinks. Oh God, Robot thinking? Then they dominate. It’s a pattern.

The Bible, the Torah, and the Koran all discuss slavery. And exalt the relationship between master and slave. It’s all telling. It is our human nature to seek control. If we are a racist country, then so what? What are we doing about it other than saying shit?

These pictures tell so many stories. It is not us against them. It’s us against us. When will we stop beating up our brothers and sisters and live together?

Here’s a playlist to help you decide.

Ric