 |
Rücksprung zur LINGNER Seite/ Back to LINGNER page |
REUNION May 28, 1956
Mike Lingner's Daughter Arrives from Behind Iron Curtain after Years of Effort
Rodney Mercury (weekly newspaper), page 1, May 30, 1956 (Article supplemented by additional pictures)
Although there were many tears in the reuniting of Mr. and Mrs. Mike Lingner and their 32-year-old daughter Elizabeth, it was the happiest occasion in their family in a long time. The reuniting of parents and daughter marked the end of a 26-year family separation which has caused both sides of the family considerable pain, effort and money.
Although Elizabeth has arrived and is living happily with her parents in the Churchville area(1), only half the fight is over for the Lingners. They still have a son in Romania, who Mike has never seen. Every possible effort is being made to bring him here as well.
Ten-Year Fight
When Elizabeth arrived by plane from overseas it marked the end of a ten year fight with communist authorities to gain her emigration papers. The long battle cost Mr. and Mrs. Lingner many thousands of dollars as they tried every possible means to get their daughter to this country.
Elizabeth worked hard to get out of Romania as well. She plagued emigration authorities there so often they were sick of seeing her around and must have given her the papers she wanted so as not to have her bother them any more.
"They told me if I didn't stop bothering them, they'd throw me out," Elizabeth states. She is thought to be the first person to emigrate from Romania with a passport since a wave of Anti-Stalinism swept Russia and its satellites.
Hasn't Seen Son
Elizabeth was only six when her father left for Canada, where he got a job in a Windsor metal stamping factory. Her brother had not been born when the family bread-winner left for this country. Mike has never seen his son and the only thing he knows about him is that he stands six feet tall and weighs about 170 and is 26 years old.
Many people from here tried to help get their daughter out, but is was finally the Red Cross which established the contact, which they had been trying to make since the end of the war.
To help get their daughter out immigration authorities advised Mike to buy a farm nine years ago. He bought a tobacco farm on Middle St., east of Furnival and has operated it successfully ever since.
Reds Seized Farm
He was a farmer in Romania, growing corn, potatoes, sugar beets, grapes and other fruits, so farming was nothing new to him. In the Old Country he had a 200-acre farm(2), with two houses on it and it was all paid for. When the Communists took over they seized his farm and made it into a collective farm.
"I never got a cent out of it," Mike says. "The Communists even wanted me to give them the deed for the land they took from me, but I didn't give it," he adds.
Romania, like the other countries under Communist rule, is not like it once was. Even town names have been changed.
As the plane's arrival time at Crumlin drew near and the tenseness
of the Lingner's grew stronger and stronger, a TCA official gave them
a telegram which stated a woman, speaking German, had failed to board
the plane at Malton and was stranded in Toronto.
No Mistake
There was no mistake once the door of the plane opened.
"I think that is her," Mrs. Lingner said, pointing hesitantly to her daughter, which she had not seen in over 20 years.
Today Mr. and Mrs. Lingner and their daughter are hard at work on their farm planting this year's tobacco. They live in hopes that it will be a four-man team in the near future, that is, if they are able to arrange to have their son and brother escape Communism and make his way to Canada, to freedom and family love.
Photo caption:
LINGNER FAMILY WAS REUNITED MONDAY at Crumlin airport when Elizabeth, Mr. and Mrs. Mike Lingner's daughter, whom they had not seen for 26 and 20 years respectively, arrived from behind the Iron Curtain. They are shown here as Elizabeth got off the plane.
REUNION
Script from CFPL-TV(3) (London (Ontario) CBC affiliate, Channel 10), May 29 1956:
Years of hope, frustration and endless waiting ended for a Western Ontario couple who were re-united with their 32-year-old daughter yesterday after twenty-six years of separation.
London Airport was the scene of the joyful reunion for the family which has been divided since 1930 by the iron curtain. For Mr. and Mrs. Michael Lingner, Rodney district tobacco farmers, this was the moment they had prayed for – reunion with their daughter Elizabeth who was six years old when they last saw her. Nearly half-a-lifetime of separation ends in a mother’s tearful embrace... and came just when the Lingners had just about given up hope of ever seeing their daughter again.
The new Canadian couple came to Canada from Romania but had to leave their daughter, Elizabeth, and a son, Michael, now twenty-six, behind. When the Communists overran their native land they lost contact with their children.
Contact was re-established ten years ago through the International Red Cross and the family has worked since then to get the children to Canada. Finally the Iron Curtain was cracked, Elizabeth was allowed a passport and now starts a new life in a free land. Next to come, the family hopes, is Michael, still in Romania.
FOOTNOTES
- Michael Lingner's farm was at Lot 10, Concession 10 (Hog Street, now "Marsh Line"), Aldborough Township.
- The farm in Dunesdorf, Romania was only 35 hectares (87.5 acres). Was the Kreisch property included in the 200 acres?
- Thanks to CFPL-TV News Director Ron Laidlaw, who answered my Dec 1981 request to see the film footage if it still existed, with the gift of the original film and the script from the archives.
