I'm going to start back a little bit earlier, simply to give my history as a definite senior in this group.
From 1950 to 1956, I was at Pier 21 helping the port workers. Having been a history teacher...I think it's something people don't realize, how many people came into Pier 21. I was an assistant, because I was a teenager, but every time a ship came in--my father had a big thing on ships--we would go down to the port to see the immigrants come. I helped the port workers, because they were all different denominations; they were Catholic, Baptist, and so on.
They would come in, and it was so simple then. When they came in on the ships, there was one long table with two immigration officers, one on each end. All the officer did was write down the names, where they came from and where they thought they were going. They all left Halifax, where I lived at that time. There was a train outside and every one of them left.
It was so simple. Of course, some of the Europeans, particularly Dutch and German, were coming over at that time. In fact, at my award time in Ottawa there was the senator who we figure was the man who was a young boy then, much younger than me, who came in at Pier 21. He is now a senator.