Discussions

Brandon was in the midst of a Canadian Pacific Rail Fireman’s strike who were protesting a company plan to abolish their positions in the freight and yard diesel Engines.  
 
Pickett lines were formed, and over six hundred employees did not report for work, which caused all operations to cease.  
 
This was the reason that a first party of twenty four refugees from Hungary were conveyed to Brandon by way of a Canadian National train.  
 
On arrival they were taken to City Hall where the Chief Magistrate greeted them. The immigrants were interviewed by way of interpreters, and told stories about a cruel enemy’s violence and hate.  
 
A community drive for warm clothing, heavy winter coats, women’s dresses, and girl’s sweaters was started. Donations came from many sources, some like unclaimed shoe repairs, and dry cleaning establishment items.  
 
The Firemen’s strike was still on when the second Hungarian refugee contingent arrived, and it numbered eighteen individuals.  
 
Some of these poor souls still bore the injuries of War, and at the General Hospital surgeons removed from Mr. Lasylo Szalai, “the last chunk’s of Communist shrapnel” that he had received during the Battle of Budapest.  
 
Several of the Refugees quickly found employment at the Brandon General Hospital, Simplot Chemicals,(1964) or in the Blacksmith and electrical trades, but others were hard to place.  
 
Nineteen-year-old Endre Tapaszto was a professional musician, and who like twenty four-year-old Martha Duda, became hotel domestic workers. They took their marriage vows in St. Augustine’s Church.  
 
Source: Brandon a City by G. F. Barker.