Yesterday a number of ATSP members participated in assisting Annika Luoma, a Finn living in Israel, in the process of locating long-lost Canadian relatives. She wrote that her great grandfather after immigrating to Canada from Finland left behind an expectant wife and two sons. His migration would have likely occurred in the later 1920s or 1930s - unfortunately the practice of leaving family behind was not totally uncommon. In most cases, as with the situation in my own family, the father would make the voyage to the new country alone and send back enough money for family subsistence and eventually sufficient funds for the entire family’s passage. It took my father slightly less than one year to accomplish this task. I knew of two men in the Porcupine who had left families behind and I am sure there were a number more. As a rule these men would cohabit with a woman in Canada since he would have been married previously. While this was not always the case, it was rather common. It’s hard to imagine that a person can abandon an entire family yet pretend to have enough morals and values not to commit bigamy. This was certainly not an act exclusive to Finnish men. Immigrants from other countries were also known to leave wives and families behind. I have an American friend of Croatian decent who had two uncles that deserted families in Croatia. Unlike today with technical advances, especially in transport, connectivity and communications as well as reciprocal accords between countries, it was relatively easy for self-centered, selfish men to abandon entire families in their country of origin.
Posted on: Wed, 10 Sep 2014 20:26:35 +0000
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