nthony's mother often told him the story of their arrival in Canada. His father had been offered a job by the government of Canada before leaving Europe. The job was to see if he could help out in the field of agronomy because of his expertise on plant life - he was to grow plant life in these barren lands.

After the boat docked in Halifax they boarded a train and headed West. The train took them to Saskatchewan where Anthony's father had been promised land to cultivate. During the train ride, there was only one other passenger on the train, a Hungarian man who shared his food that he had in a wicker basket. They learned he was a farmer and as Anthony's dad grew up in the golden era of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (he was even present once at the Court of then Emperor Franz Josef), he was able to converse with him in Hungarian. When they arrived at a place called Windthorst, another platform that served as a station, the farmer got off. Anthony's father and mother continued alone, passing seas of wheat and shrubs---no houses---no villages---NOTHING.

At Regina, they boarded a trunk train, riding in a satin-lined coach. They traveled from 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. with nothing to eat; there were not even toilets. The train would only stop long enough for the passengers to liberate their bladders.

When they got to Davidson, a town on the rail line about half-way between Regina and Saskatoon, they were let out in the middle of the prairie which was so desolate and wind-blown that, apart from the rickety train station, there was nothing to be seen as far as the eye could see but tumbleweeds and blowing sand. There, a fellow by the name of Franz Tiggler, who Anthony's father had arranged to have meet them, picked them up in a 1914 Model-T Ford. He drove them to a large building in the middle of nowhere. The main room had shelves of canned food. Franz never threw away any of his empty cans---he would just put them back on the shelves. There was a windmill and a well. Franz scooped up some water for mother---there was a rat in the water. The beds had dirty linen with no clean linen to change. There was a generator and a freezer (a guess that was an icebox). Anthony's mother cooked a meal with veal that was in the freezer. Franz put his hands, with his dirty fingernails, into the stew. So, she taught him how to eat; cut his hair and cleaned him up. He became devoted to her. One day Franz vanished. He went to some small village about 75 miles away to buy mom a few chocolate bars---that took him 2 days.

They stayed at this place until the end of October. During this time, Anthony's father got to work and began to do something with the desolate and barren land and had three train cabooses fitted with bunk beds for his workmen.

Life was not rosy and there were many hardships for the Jurak's during these trying times and before one year was out, Anthony's mother could not cope with the hardship after having a rather 'life of Riley' in Europe and she pleaded with her husband to return to the old country. Well, his father could see what was happening and he understood the breakup was forthcoming in Europe, so he was reluctant to leave the great North American continent that certainly seemed to be a land of plenty. Anthony's father convinced his wife to move to Winnipeg, which was a little more developed, and there he continued his work and some months later, their first child, Lauretta, was born in 1927. Well, as his mother related to Anthony, Winnipeg was just as desolate and the hardship was just as great and the Great Depression was now upon them. In order to avoid some of the more unpleasant things happening to most people, they sold off all the valuables that they had brought from Europe. Since things were still bleak, Anthony's mother again pleaded to return to Europe, and in 1932, they headed off east to Quebec City to wait for a boat to take them back to their homeland.