“Brandon’s Ghetto” Walking Tour Notes

From the walking tour, summer, 2014 - David McConkey

Brandon Daily Sun reporter, June 1902:

“The larger the city, the greater is the slum proportion. It would hardly be imagined that in the clean little city of Brandon there would be such a class of dwellings, but nevertheless there are many houses on the flats, the interior of which would make an uptown resident wonder for the time being if he lived in Brandon.”

Clifford Sifton (Maclean’s, 1922):

“Hardy peasants who were anxious to leave Europe and start life under better conditions in a new country.”

“A stalwart peasant in a sheep-skin coat, born on the soil . . . with a stout wife and a half-dozen children.”

Margaret MacMillan (Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World):

“Corrupt, poor, the most backward part of a decaying empire, Galicia was a byword for misery. Those who could, emigrated.”

G. F. Barker (Brandon: A City 1881 – 1961):

1913: “Newly-arrived North Side residents of European extraction, given to both bottles and battles, were hailed regularly before the (court).”

Brandon Daily Sun, May 5, 1913:

Note about the Arbor Day holiday: “The city hall offices are all closed, there were no cases before Magistrate Bates, not even a Galician drunk . . .”

Brandon Daily Sun, January 12 and 13, 1916:

Scottish-born Section Foreman George McGhie was described as “the only English-speaking man” and “the only Britisher.”

“With the exception of McGhie, all the dead are Austrians. They are chiefly married men who had applied for the work. In this connection, the officials of the [CPR] state that they are the only class of men that can be procured for the work, being a hardy type and driven to undertaking the work by
necessity to get food for themselves and their families.”

“The news of the accident spread like wildfire. Offers of assistance were made . . . . and others brought brandy and attempted to revive the numbed limbs of the injured and in other ways render some relief to the sufferers. Soon there was a crowd of (nearly demented) women from the flats volubly inquiring as to the fate of their husbands, sons and brothers.”

“A remarkably sad case is that of Ignace Kucharsky, whose wife and seven children live at 53 - 12th Street North. The eldest of the family is a boy of 17 years and he had both feet and hands frozen at the wreck yesterday. The woman only gave birth to a daughter last Friday. Fuel and some groceries were sent to the house by a sympathiser.”

Brandon Daily Sun, May 14, 1915:

[Soldiers swept past the guards and set fire to a house]; “the Austrians who had been living there were driven out before the fire commenced.”

“A huge crowd had assembled and . . . was cheering for the soldiers and (the song) ‘Tipperary’ was being sung with gusto.”

“[The soldiers as] all the citizens have been annoyed of late by numbers of foreigners making seditious remarks and behaving in an attitude extremely offensive to men wearing the King’s uniform.”

Brandon Daily Sun, June 7, 1915:

“[The internment camp escapees] are all under 30 years of age. The ringleaders are about 24 and much superior to the average Austrian labourer in intellect.”

[Interview with one of them]: He finds the confinement maddening.
“Will you try to escape again?’ he is asked. “You want me to tell you the truth? . . . Yes, I will try again, because I will go crazy if I stay here much longer. I will take my chance getting shot.”

Clifford Sifton (Maclean’s, 1922):

“These men are workers. They have been bred for generations to work from daylight to dark. They have never done anything else and they have never expected to do anything else. We have some hundreds of thousands of them in Canada now and they are among our most useful and productive people.”

Brandon Daily Sun reporter, June, 1902:

“They form almost a village by themselves. Children ranging from crying infants to cheeky ten-year-old boys are to be seen in large numbers in the neighborhood. The young ones talk English almost as well as their mother tongue and as they grow old enough they are sent out to find work to bring in a few quarters to keep up the bread supply.

The condition of these people, although apparently living in filth, is on the whole improving. They are saving, and spending little. As soon as they have sufficient cash, they move to larger and cleaner quarters; their place being filled by new arrivals.

Such is life among . . . the foreigners on the flats.”

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