When German bombers took out the airfields and their mechanized armies threw up blockades in 1942, “we were completely surrounded and everything in Brussels was sealed off all the way up to France,” she said.

She said they found their country deprived of food and the basic necessities of life were kept from getting through enemy lines. The Germans seized everything they wanted. And things remained paralyzed until the war ended in 1945.

At first, she said young people thought the war was a great adventure. Of course they didn’t realize the dangers of a totalitarian regime. Yet, this blue eyed, soft-spoken lady explained how her people found the strength and the courage to carry on.

Mary and her late husband Ernie grew up together in the same neighbourhood and became childhood sweethearts. While young Belgium men were rounded up to serve in the German army, the majority managed to escape capture and joined the Allied Forces. Ernie served on English destroyers until the war was over.

They married towards the war’s end and had a daughter and a son. She laughs, remembering how both children were delivered at home on her parent’s kitchen table. This was the old-fashioned custom of birthing. Back then, many were born there and when a person died the body was prepared on the kitchen table before being laid-out.

“We thought nothing of it,” Mary said.

Meanwhile the Suedericks were finding it tough to make ends meet. With Ernie working two jobs, rationing became a constant struggle for the young family. One Sunday, she said, they read in the local paper the Canadian government wanted immigrants. The ad offered big wages of $2 an hour and nice, cheap apartments, which “we found out later was a bunch of promises that never happened.”

The Suedericks sold everything they owned to raise the $500 passage money. They boarded the American troop ship SS Washington to take up their new life in Canada and “we were happy to be going,” she said.

It was a six-week crossing. She remembers a beautiful, sunny spring day as the ship sailed into Halifax harbour. “We could see the lighthouse in the distance. It looked so inviting.” When the ship reached Pier 21, it was total confusion.

They wanted to go to Quebec because they both spoke French, but the immigration authorities said there was no work in Montreal, which they learned later was untrue, and “they bundled us on a train for Toronto,” Mary said.

Once there, they were disappointed. It was such a terrible place, she said. While Ernie could speak some broken English, Mary only knew a couple of words. Wages were 90 cents an hour and apartments hard to find, especially if there were children. They managed to find a bed-sitting room for $15 a week, purchased a crib for their baby and set up housekeeping.

Ernie found a job in a garage and later bought a car. They decided perhaps they would do better up north. They packed up the car and headed to Rainy River (Thunder Bay). Ernie found employment in Carland and later at the Atikokan Ore Mine.

The Suedericks sent home for their eldest daughter. Jose flew in from Brussels by TWA on Christmas Day 1951. It had been seven years since they last saw her. They now had five children and a farm to run.

They came to Nova Scotia in 1960 and settled in Blockhouse, Lunenburg County, but decided to move on down the shore to Port Mouton. Ernie found work in the boiler room of Queens General Hospital where he remained until his death in 1991.

As Mary recounted the good and bad times they shared together she said they enjoyed their travels across Canada and Europe. Every summer they went back to Belgium to visit their families and friends. Wherever they went, she said they always made friends and had great times.

After all she said, as a smile flickered across her face, “Life is what you make it.”