Joseph Zettl was born in 1934 in Sopron, Hungary close to the Austrian border. He was one of three children (four more children would follow as the years went by) and in 1944, when the Russians came closer to the border of his country, a man from their church knew it was time for them all to get out so he took steps to make sure they got out.
Joe reflected back and said, "We were German Hungarians. My father served in the war as a construction supervisor on different projects.
"A man from our church organized several box cars and loaded them with families from our church in order to flee into Germany and away from the Russians. We spent the next eight days traveling to safety by rail like cattle in a box car. We slept on the floor; there were no toilets or conveniences of any kind. Don't get me wrong; we were all grateful and everyone prayed."
Joe was only ten years old when his family fled from all of their familiar surroundings. His mother kept in touch with his father through it all and it wasn't long until his family was together again.
He was schooled in Stuttgart, Germany and at 18 years of age he successfully finished his apprenticeship training as a brick layer.
His father had always wanted to immigrate to the United States, but when that fell through Joe and a friend applied for immigration into Canada. On his 20th birthday he received a letter from the Canadian Embassy inviting him to visit the embassy. Joe said, "I asked my friend if he had received the same letter and he said no. I found out later that I had received the letter because I had a trade and Canada was especially interested in immigrants with a trade. To make a long story short, we boarded a boat in Germany and arrived at the St. Lawrence River port in Montreal, Quebec ten days later. It was a pretty rough trip and I can tell you that it wasn't a cruise ship. There were four men to a room and we all slept on bunk beds.
"We got off the boat and took a train to Toronto. I had $40 to my name and I was thankful for every penny of it. We went to the unemployment office and landed a seasonal job working in the tobacco harvest.
"We heard that there was good money to be made working in the bush but we couldn't find the bush. We were told that Quebec had small trees but BC had big trees. We soon learned that the term big trees equated to more money - the bigger the trees the more money to be made so we headed to Prince George."
Prior to heading west, Joe contacted the minister at the local German Baptist Church and was given the name of the Prince George German Baptist Church minister. With that information in hand, they headed to Prince George to look him up at his church which was right across from where the car wash on Third Avenue is now located. They arrived at six a.m. after eight days on the train.
They located the minister and he directed them down Third Avenue past the Fichtner apartments to the Schlitt Professional Centre where they successfully landed jobs for Schlitt Sawmills.
The company was hiring, however they had to wait for the frost to arrive before they could start logging. One week later, in October of 1954, they were both out in the camp on Buckhorn Road falling trees with a cross cut saw.
Joe said "I was young and strong but I wondered many times that first winter 'what on earth am I doing here?'
"There were three Schlitt brothers in the company; two of them ran the sawmill on Buckhorn Road. I attended the German Baptist Church and was lucky to meet and marry one of the bosses' daughters. When I met Evelyn I knew she was the one; it was love at first sight."
Joe married Evelyn Edith Schlitt, the love of his life in 1956. Evelyn was born in Regina, Sask. in 1931. Together they had three children John (Peggy-Jo), Dolores (Rob) Watt and David (Connie) who in turn gave them five grandchildren and six great grandchildren.
Evelyn was a stay-at home-mom and did the books for the family business. She was a good accountant and did an exceptional job doing all the secretarial work.
Besides raising the children, she mended, knitted and specialized in her needle work creating many family keepsakes.
Evelyn and Joe worked hard during the construction season and traveled in the winter. Joe said, "The construction season was a very busy time for both of us. We wanted to spend time together as a family so we traveled and vacationed during the winter months.
"Sadly Evelyn passed away in December of 2015 after nearly 60 years of a wonderful marriage."
Joe said, "When we first got married, it just so happened that the Schlitts had just finished building a new house in town so we moved to their farm. I worked in town during the summer and piled lumber during the winter.
"I found work with John Mellish, a masonry contractor and after a couple of years we became partners in Mellish and Zettl Masonry Ltd. When he retired I bought him out and changed the name to Zettl Masonry Ltd. and incorporated in 1964.
"In the beginning we did fire places and houses and then moved on to doing the masonry work exclusively for commercial and industrial buildings."
Zettl Masonry has an impressive list of buildings with their stamp on them. They did 90 per cent of all the big buildings in Prince George including the city hall which is all brick both inside and out, all the swimming pools, the Prince George Coliseum, most of the schools, the 12-storey high rise on Third Avenue, many service stations, the airport building, Spruceland Shopping Centre, Pine Centre Mall and the new police station just to name a few. In fact Zettl Masonry is one the biggest masonry companies north of Vancouver.
Over the years, Zettl Masonry has employed a good basic crew of 15 to 20 brick layers at a time. Joe has enough history of all of these projects and more to write his own book.
Joe concluded by saying, "I have passed the business on to my two sons and I keep busy with Zettl Holdings Ltd. I have done business with many great people these past 50 years and I am proud of what I have accomplished since coming to Canada with only $40 to my name.
"Evelyn and I volunteered at our church and I am still active at the Fort George Baptist Church.
"I have made many good friends, I had the best wife ever and together we had a great family.
"Many of my friends and associates ask me if I am still working and I just say that I never did work - I just hired all the workers. Of course this is not true because I worked hard all my life. Prince George was always good to me - right from the start."
