French Canadian Walter Kamerlingh was born in 1929, in Sainte-Justine, Que., an area about 100 km south east of Quebec City. One of nine children, he was born and raised on a dairy farm.
Walter said, "I was born the same year that the stock market crashed. I always say that it happened that way so that I could show how much trouble I created. All my life, I was determined to change the way of the world. I feel that I did just that in my own way and I am still doing it. All of that is complicated and I could write a book about my life - but I won't.
"My father battled cancer for three years and during that time my mother took over as the head of the family. She was a strong woman and supported the family through all of this. She was the first one up in the morning tending to all the chores and household duties and she was the last one to go to bed at night. Most times she was still up at midnight. I believed that she was a happy woman because she was singing all the time. I respected her 100 per cent.
"I left home at the age of 15 to work in a very remote - and I mean a remote - logging camp. I was at the camp for six months and we had nothing when it came to conveniences. I returned to the farm and one year later I tried another logging camp in Ontario. I returned to the farm again and later left for Montreal in search of something I could not identify. This is hard to explain - I don't really know what I was searching for but I spent a good amount of time reading various Bibles, the Koran and the Talmud - the primary source of Jewish religious law which serves as the guide for the daily life of the Jewish people.
"I did not like Montreal so a couple of buddies and I went as far west as Alberta. We found work with a thrashing crew. That was going okay until the end of September when we got 18 inches of snow and that ended the threshing season so we moved on and went to Vancouver.
"I arrived in Vancouver in 1950 at the age of 20. I liked the beauty of downtown Vancouver and especially Stanley Park and the ocean. I spent many hours in the Granville and Robson Street area and I could not believe that there was no one open for business on a Sunday. To me that was strange because in Montreal businesses were open and busy every day of the week.
"I worked five days a week in a lumber yard piling everything as needed. At the time they were sawing trees from Brazil. The wood was heavy and so hard that it took all day to saw it up so that they could sell it by the pound. The main market for this kind of wood was the shipbuilders; they used it as bearings on the propeller shaft. It was said that this particular ship bearing cut down on the noise and that it was self-lubricating.
"I worked in the lumber yard for nearly two years and I started wandering. I quit the job and I took dance lessons from the Arthur Murray Dance Studio.
"I applied for a job at the Canadian Pacific Railway in the telegraph department. I took the Morse Code training course and passed with 50 words per minute on the key and 100 words per minute on the bug key which is a semi-automatic mechanical keyer; all of this is now obsolete.
"They hired me and sent me to Trail and later sent me to Spences Bridge as the assistant agent. My job was to make up trains from the cars that arrived from Kamloops. Once I made up the trains the steam engine would arrive and pick up the train.
"I missed Vancouver so I quit the job and started wandering again. I joined a gym and spent one day after the other in the gym. I took boxing training on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, basketball on Tuesday, lessons on how to shot a revolver on the gun range on Thursday and fencing on Saturday.
"I skied Grouse Mountain all day long (I only stopped long enough to eat lunch) and went dancing all night and all the while I was popular with the girls."
Walter worked as a landscaper in Vancouver and then moved to Prince George in 1967. He worked for the Common Wealth mobile home company as a service man and made $150 a month. He said he had to work long days so he quit the job and went to the Okanagan to pick apples.
He moved back to Prince George and started Eagle Mobile Home Service and specialized in heating and air conditioning. His was the only company in Prince George that carried the parts that were needed for the work he did on mobile homes and motorhomes. After five years, he sold the company because of all the pressure involved with the business.
He was self-employed and worked on the air conditioning system for Ron Newsom in his building on the corner of Second and Victoria. He also worked for the Novak Brothers as needed.
Walter said, "For the next two years I just lived off the money from the sale of the business. I spent most of my time in the gym at the Inn of the North. Now I just go dancing as much as possible."
