Browse Tagged “Restaurants and Working Life” from the Canadian Macedonian Heritage Society archive, library and community collections.
You become a stranger in your own place A stranger in foreign lands They changed our names And they look like boxes So, you can have a permit to work An uncle tells me The old ones have to change The names, above all A thousand up and down in the piggybank They called me Box It didn’t bother me very much I’m not going to stay there anyway First job in Canada Washing dishes, and lots of them It ...
Mother, all the young men are leaving far away. They go to find work — they are all at the ports. I too must leave somewhere else, wherever fate may take me, since it was God’s will to make me their protector. “Where will you leave me, my son, with three little girls?” “But that is why I must go, Mother — I am not searching for palaces. There is no work here nearby. Give me all your blessings; I ...
Friends came to see me From the great and busy city. “But why sit here like this?” they said, “You’ll grow faint and dizzy.” One night they took me with them To chase after the girls; But their brothers spotted us, And we scattered through the alleys. They brought me back at morning light, Straight into the kitchen; Half past five the day began, And the routine continued. There we worked ...
GUS and GASTIS from the village Decided to open a restaurant. The two of them agreed at once Without a single comment. One would stand at the register The other would work in the kitchen. Soon they would open the doors And money would begin to pour in. A sign out front they prepared With their names displayed. Workers laboured inside And the two of them helped as well. Above the door the sign ...
Canada you are indeed a land and nation of immigrants Many people heard you call and they came. Macedonians left their beloved homeland Your hopes and opportunities to claim. You invited them; come Aegean, come Pirin, come Vardar Come you resilient and strong peoples. Leave Macedonia, as children will someday leave the home. Come have families, build homes, build businesses, build churches with their steeples. You ...
Every time I pass Niagara Street in Toronto’s west end a story my Father told me comes to mind. My Grandfather Tanas Radeff with some fellow villagers from Ohschima had come to Canada from Macedonia in1898 looking for work. They had not come to stay but to sojourn for a few years then to return, hoping to buy a farm or build a bigger house with what money they saved. When my Grandfather returned to Macedonia at the ...
Recently in a local bookstore, I opened a copy of Jack London’s collected stories. Glancing down the list of titles, I smiled in recognition of familiar readings from my boyhood. Coming upon the title The Sea Wolf I stopped, as memories of my Father and the arrogance of my youth came into my mind. Turning to chapter 24 in this particular story, I looked for that special word. My eyes went up and down the pages where ...
Not far from here at the corner of Wellesley and Bay Was a restaurant known as The Falcon. You may have seen it before? The small sign above the door? Right next to the old place called Sutton...
Lambo Anastasoff Tenekeff was born in 1895 in the village of Gabresh,Macedonia. He immigrated to Canada with his father Anastas Kizoff in 1907. He worked as a butcher and three years later opened his own grocery/butcher store and named it Louis Meat Market. In the established Canadian community he became known as Mr. Louis. In 1919 he sent for his fiancee Kiratza Zolumoff. They were married in 1921 and over a period of eleven years had four children (Mary, Chris, Victoria, Tsana). In the Macedonian community the Anastasoffs were known as the Tenekeff family. Tenekeff was a nickname Lanbo's father acquired while growing up in the village of Gabresh Macedonia. In Canada and the USA Lambo was widely regarded as a leader in the Macedonian community.
Dedo Pando Damianoff Stoyanchin emigrated from Macedonia/Turkey to Toronto in 1914, followed by Baba Gena Nikoloff Chungaroff about six years later. My father and his siblings were all born on Maria Street in Toronto. Dedo Nauom Kyrou emigrated from Macedonia/Greece to Toronto in 1922, followed by Baba Lena Papaiouannou Kyrou and my mother in 1932. My mother was born in Zhelevo; however her two younger brothers were born in Toronto.
