Below are excerpts from letters Teuna de Jong wrote to her mother in the Netherlands throughout the 1960s. She and her husband, Jelle, bought a house in Britannia-Youngstown in June 1961, and raised four children there.
Thanks to the family, who translated and edited the letters, and gave us permission to publish these excerpts. Eveline Garneau [link to profile], Teuna’s daughter, was also interviewed by the Jasper Place Community History Project where she tells more stories of the family and her childhood in that period.
May 31, 1961
Next month, on the 25th of June, we will move to our new house. We bought an old house, but it looks friendly. The bedrooms are very small, but each child gets one. But what we like the most, it has a very large yard. It also has a double garage. Jelle has been working in the garden already. There is a sandbox and swing. Jelle’s brother is coming to help us with the moving. Our yard is 35m x 50m. The kids will love it.
June 16, 1961
We are living in our new house since Sunday. We have so much work to do, that I don’t have much time for writing. We have a beautiful yard, but it was very neglected. But Jelle is a real landscaper. When we are finished with the yard, we’ll start with the house. New wallpaper and linoleum is on top of the list.
July 9, 1961
Last week we started with the floors on the main floor. The floors in the sitting area were varnished wooden boards; as a matter of fact, all floors were like that, but it was hidden by linoleum. We threw all the linoleum away and rented a sanding machine and Jelle sanded everything clean and smooth. … After everything was smooth, it had to be varnished 3 times, so we were constantly moving furniture and trying to keep E. out of the varnished parts. We were still busy at 1 am Saturday night. But except for the hallway that has to be done 2 times still, the results are very nice. It is a plastic varnish and you don’t have to polish it
E. started digging the yard in front of the garage. He does it 3 spades deep. Jelle is continuing it and does every day one width. Jelle was supposed to have 1 week holidays and we used that with the moving. But a new law says that you have to have 2 weeks after one year, and we have another week coming and he will paint the roof in that week.
September 13, 1961
I went for a walk this afternoon and spent all my household money. Shoes for E., nylons for me, vitamins for M., and I had a haircut. Just enough money left for the milkman.
The garden is empty. I canned on Monday: 9 jars with beets and 4 with beans. G. did, on one day, 38 big jars with beans. That is almost like a factory, eh?
June 11, 1962
I worked for almost 3 hours in the garden today. Finally summer weather after 10 days of rain. Our driveway is very muddy, and we have very dirty children who would love to sit in the mud the whole day. I have to scrape their shoes clean many times during the day. …. E. was a collector of caterpillars and worms last week. She came home with her hands full. The rain worms were even in her hairs. They were nice worms, she said.
November 4, 1962
The children have been sick – colds, coughing, bronchitis and vomiting. We bought a humidifier and when they are asleep, we steam with some Vicks in the water and they are getting better. …. It was Hallowe’en last Wednesday. E. went around the block with an older girl. She loved it and had a bag full of peanuts, suckers, toffees and chewing gum. We had at least 130 children at the door. They usually came in group of 8 or 6.
March 9, 1963
It is still below freezing during the night and the kids are having great fun cracking the think layers of ice. They are wearing rubber snow boots over their shoes, and I have to pour the water out of the shoes and overshoes when they come in. …. We thought that we were spending too much on cigarettes and we changed to buying tins of tobacco and paper and rolling them ourselves.
March 30, 1963
E. and I were at the dentist yesterday. Her teeth were OK and she did not cry and opened very willingly her mouth. A lot better than last time. She got a coupon for an ice cream cone – a “bravery reward” it was called.
August 24, 1963
I’m very busy with canning. I have 30 jars ready with vegetables and also several with jam, rhubarb and pickles. I enjoy the work but it is not easy with 3 children around who want to see everything and climb on chairs, afraid they’ll miss something and there is hardly room left for me. I still have to do the carrots, beets and beans.
December 12, 1963
E. and M. are getting skates for Christmas. Jelle made a little skating rink in the yard and we don’t need to go far away to teach them. E. is also getting a doll in a nurse’s outfit and M. a cowboy gun and puppets for both of them. J. is getting a doll’s stroller with doll and telephone and A. a rattle. I hope they will play with it for a while and not always with my wooden spoons, can opener or eggbeater.
January 19, 1964
I went shopping yesterday with E. and M. …. We were in a new shopping centre [probably Meadowlark]. In the middle is a fountain and children can throw money in it for charity. I lost M. several times but found him back near the water. Once he was laying on his stomach drinking the water. …. We had company this afternoon. Friends with two boys, 4 and 2. And, together with our kids, it was quite a racket. Jelle played accordion and we did some games. It was a good thing we did not have to worry about the neighbours. Jelle started digging in the cellar.
January 24, 1964
Did I tell you that we bought a freezer? It is 2nd hand and when he had it in the house, we had to send it to the factory because it was leaking and did not freeze. So now I won’t have to do all the canning anymore. You also can buy large quantities of meat and put that in the freezer. And bread is 5 cents per loaf cheaper when you buy 20 loaves at a time.
April 12, 1964
Nylons are very cheap here. Most of the time, they are 39 cents, but often, when you spend $5, you’ll get a pair for 19 cents. And as we usually spend about $20 for groceries, I then buy 4 pairs and they last a long time.
G. was here on her day off and we went shopping in Meadowlark. A. in the stroller and J. in a shopping buggy. We went by bus and came home in the car of a friend.
June 4, 1964
We had E.’s birthday on Sunday. Jelle made a beautiful playhouse. He worked on it last week till very late at night. She loves it. We invited our old neighbours, [the Osbornes], with 5 children, and all the kids out of the neighbourhood came over and sometimes there were 12 kids in the playhouse.
The playhouse is an attraction for the whole neighbourhood. E. plays in it with her friends in the morning, and after school, two 8-year-old girls came and start their housekeeping. They have a table, chairs and doll’s cradle, and they imagine the rest. A skipping rope is the telephone. A square block of wood is the TV.
August 7, 1964
Monday was a holiday for Jelle, and G. and Jelle picked 8 pails of beans. G. and I cleaned and cut them, and we froze them all in the evening.
We won’t be Jasper Place much longer. Jasper Place will become Edmonton.
October 18, 1964
I’m doing a lot of sewing. It is going to be Hallowe’en pretty soon, and I’m making a clown’s outfit for M. Half is white from an old sheet and half is colorful from an old dress. And for E., a rabbit outfit. The pants are ready but not the blouse, out of an old shirt and the hat with the long ears. They have to wear their warm outside clothes underneath, so it has to be big and roomy.
March 4, 1965
On April 25th, the 3 oldest kids are going to be on TV: Popcorn Playhouse. It’s an hour and a half program of cartoons and games. There are about 25 kids in the studio and they are interviewed and the children who have or have just had a birthday can dig in the “gold mine”. They eat a lot of candies and cake. Then ‘Klondike Eric’, probably, asks them to say something in Dutch because of the name. [M. was asked what a real Dutch breakfast was, and he said ‘cornflakes’].
April 22, 1965
We had a lake in the backyard and 3 hoses working to drain the water away. One went to the basement, the other 2 to the back land.
The children woke us up at 5:30 Easter morning. They wanted to go look for eggs. It looked like Christmas with a new layer of snow. The weather forecast is for warmer temperatures. I hope that the mud will dry up quickly. It is so much work to clean three children covered with mud.
Fall 1965 – Hepatitis outbreak
August 25th: Most of the time I can write that everything is okay, but not this time. J. and I are having jaundice (hepatitis) and M. has been sick too but is okay now. Maybe he’ll still get it. G. is here to look after us. I was really sick last week with a high fever, but I don’t feel so bad this week.
Sept 18th: Jelle is still gone from Monday till Saturday afternoon, and I’m not completely healthy yet, and try to rest in the afternoon and go to bed early.
J. was only sick for 2 weeks and plays very nicely with M. on the days that he stays home.
Nov. 6th: M. had hepatitis but is now better again. He missed going out for Hallowe’en. …. We don’t have company anymore. Everybody is scared of the hepatitis.
Nov 27th: M. cannot have a birthday party tomorrow. It has to be 6 weeks after the hepatitis before we can have visitors in this house. He does not understand it, but he can have a party in the Christmas holidays.
June 21, 1966
Jelle now has three weeks holiday and also got a raise. But everything is getting more expensive. Bread and milk were 18 cents when we came here. It is now 25 Cents.
E. and M. have a bug collection There are everywhere jam jars with spiders, caterpillars, moths and ladybugs. The non-stinging bugs are allowed out of their jar every day for a little while.
July 9, 1966
E. had a nice report and is going to Grade 2. She has 2 months holiday and is not bored for one second. She goes every day to the playground. There is a leader who does games, arts and crafts, plays and sings songs with the children. M. goes to swimming lessons. It is more playing than lessons, but it will be easier for him next year when they learn to float.
Did I write that we bought another car? Light green station wagon Rambler 1965.
Jelle is spending all his free time in the basement. He wants to get the 4 walls ready and wants to take a contractor who will jack up the house and finish the walls and windows and then we can do the rest slowly and don’t have to be afraid to get water in the basement.
December 4, 1966
We are just finished with the chickenpox. E. started on November 6th and was home for 14 days. And when she went back to school, the other three were sick.
February 26, 1967
We had an exciting weekend. Saturday morning at 7:30, we were all in a covered skating rink where E. had to take her figure skating test. She passed! In the afternoon, they had a dress rehearsal for the carnival that was held on Sunday. They were all dressed up in their Hallowe’en costumes and they all won a prize. There was not much competition, but we were very proud that their names came over the loudspeakers. M. skated in his “Learn to Skate” class and was a Mountie with red coat and hat. E. did some figures with her class and they also got their badges and again their names over the sound system.
August 26, 1967
Jelle is away since August 14. It is still holidays and we don’t have to get up early and we eat when we feel like it. And we go places. We went swimming, to the zoo and to a shopping centre. We did our grocery shopping this afternoon. We went with 2 buses and each of us carried a bag. I’ll have to buy more next week and then take a taxi coming home.
September 30, 1967
The new white mouse is still alive on the kitchen table. E. takes good care of it. She cleans the cage every day and, when she’s home, she carries it around in a Kleenex for the poopies. She took him for ‘Show and Tell’, but the teacher did not like it at all.
May 5, 1968
We were very busy this week. It was ‘Spring Tea’ at the school. I helped in the morning with setting up and in the afternoon cutting cake and dishing out strawberries and ice cream.
We had the Miles for Millions march today. G. and M. also walked the 25 miles.
E. and M. are playing on baseball teams and play or practice 4 times a week and so we never eat all at the same time.
January 30, 1969
School for A. is cancelled. It is –39 degrees Fahrenheit and very foggy, and they don’t want to drive children around. Since the beginning of January, it has been very cold, but the children are used to it and often play outside for a while. M.’s eyelashes were frozen yesterday.
March 11, 1969
We went to Parents Night and enjoyed all the things we never had or did in elementary school. J. was learning about farms and her class was full, with pictures of animals and farm machines. She had made a book in the shape of a barn, with a story about an animal on every page. M.’s class had had all kinds of science experiments, burnt sugar, salt water that had to evaporate, etc. In E.’ class, every child had written a story about him/herself and the parents had to guess who was their child. They often have TV or movies and instead of gym, they go skating sometimes. They love school and J. would like to go on Saturdays and Sundays, too.
July 22, 1969
Four weeks have passed and the children have not been bored yet. E. went two weeks to a daycamp and loved it. M. is enjoying his tennis lessons and often goes swimming and is painting an old wooden suitcase that belonged to E. J. and A. play with their friends. I took them to see Peter Pan.
We went camping 2 weekends. Both times we had a lot of rain and went home earlier than planned. The second time, we were just able to see the moonwalk.
They are going to have a carnival in the yard. Everything cost 1 penny. M. with 2 friends are making a slide from the playhouse. They made midway games, and I have to make Koolaid and popcorn. And the garage is a haunted house, M. in a sheet and rattle with chains.
August 10, 1969
Jelle is trimming all the trees and hedges. The children don’t like it. They are having more trouble in climbing the trees. But Jelle gave them some boards and they are trying to make a treehouse. M. has some nice friends, and with E.’s friend, they have a club of 8-, 9-, and 10-year-olds. J. and A. have their own friends.
This post is part of the Jasper Place Community History Project’s Community Stories series. These are stories about current and former community members presented mostly in their own words. We have not fact-checked these stories. As a result, there may be some discrepancies concerning dates, locations, spellings of names, and other details.
The series is curated by Paula E. Kirman and Colette Lebeuf.
