Description
Mr. Senycz speaks about the tough times for families during the Depression and how
salary dollars were limited.
John Senycz
Mr. Senycz was born August 22, 1920 in Colhurst, Alberta. His parents were both of Polish descent, born in Czechoslovakia, and moved to Canada to work in the coal mines. At age two, his father died and his mother remarried. Mr. Senycz joined the Canadian Army 4th Division Tank Corps in 1942 and was shipped overseas to England. It was during the Battle of Falaise that his tank got hit and the crew of five soldiers was badly burned. Because of the severity of Mr. Senycz’ burns, he was transported to Basingstoke hospital in England for rehabilitation. With the many burns and scars, Mr. Senycz underwent three to four years of plastic surgery to his face. On September 18, 1945, Mr. Senycz was discharged from the Canadian Army from the orderly room in Vancouver, BC. He later married, moved to Calgary, Alberta, and raised a family.
Transcript
If you had a family they only give you five dollars a month per person for relief and you couldn’t buy the sweet stuff like sugar or jams and that. You had to buy potatoes and cabbages because they didn’t want you to... but the storekeeper always slipped something in there for you because he wanted your business. But five dollars a month, that’s all you got. And you had to work it off. My parents had to work it off. My brother and I, we used to work on the road with pick and shovel and fixing things to work that thirty dollars off or you couldn’t get it the next time. Today that’s taboo, they figure that’s disgraceful.