Australia 2003 1st Leg

Australia Trip 2003 Feb 24 2003 arrived at the Airport for the start of our flight to Perth West Australia which Anne had booked up with stop offs at Hong Kong, Cairns, on the Great Barrier Reef for a few days, then on to Alice Springs, and then to Ayr's Rock, or as they now call it Uluru, back to Alice Springs then on to Perth. The trouble was that on the way to the airport it starts to snow heavy and was quite cold about minus 20 F , when we got there and lined up for the tickets a guy walks over to me and wants to inspect the bags before we even get to the ticket counter, I say OK and he starts to do so right in the lineup. Its difficult to get the stuff back in the bad under those condition's, and seems to be an omen of things to come. We check our bags in and the guy at the counter tells us that the flight has been delayed until 2.30AM, at which we begin to bide our time, bide out time until the next announcement a hour later when the announcement comes that the flight is delayed until the same time next day, but that they will pay for a taxi to get us home and back the next day. When we get home, quite late, after midnight, with no keys, we have to ring the bell to get in which causes Carter, the dog to howl, and scare Amanda who is now in the house by herself wondering who wants in now. Amanda lets us in at which time we explain the situation and go to bed. We are picked up at 3.00 PM next day for our flight which will take off at 10.00PM bound for Anchorage Alaska for our first refuel on our way, which is a 6.30 minute flight. Jetting through the starlit skies Little dipper in view all the way Listening to the snores and sighs, Children murmuring,babies cries What a bum breaking ride, and, Not because it's bumpy, just so long to sit in one position, tends to make one grumpy. We get to Anchorage more or less on time and expect to be off the plane for 45 minutes, at which time we send a post card home to the girls, and get back on the plane, and have to wait another 45 minutes because of a security risk, until they find out what was the matter, that Omen feeling is starting to creep in again. Got to Hong Kong 7AM local time what a long flight and got a hotel room to rest up for the next leg of the journey. We went to the room and find out that someone is still in it so we have to go back and explain that to them at which time they give us another. When we finally get in the room we find that the key will not work the lights properly so we had to have a guy come and fix the problem. After a relaxing shower and rest we go back to the terminal for the next lap and check in and ask about our flight to Cairns and are told we are not going to Cairns, but to Sydney, but we have one hour to make connections to Cairns, which is from a different section of the Airport, at which we told them we didn't think we could make it in time, what with having to go through Customs, and they said that the plane would be held for us if there was a slight problem. This is a real piss off because to get to Sydney we have to fly right over Cairns and on 2000 miles, then we have to get on another plane and fly back, not only this we have hotels booked up at Cairns, Alice Spring's and Ayrs Rock, and will lose a day along the way. It seems because of the original delay we couldn't stop off at Cairns because the plane only flys there every other day. We get to Sydney and meet an obnoxious Customs Officer who was worried about the food we were smuggling in, and when he asked us for the keys so that he could open the bags, wed couldn't find them right away, and thinking the delay would cause us to miss the next flight we told him to break the locks. They brought a pair of bolt cutters and they wouldn't work on the Mickey Mouse lock that we had put on the bags, and had to send for another pair, which finally allowed them to open the bag. He kept asking us about the food we were bringing in to Australia, and we told him we weren't bringing any food to Australia, and when he asked us why we were not bringing food to Australia I told him we were hoping, above hope that they had enough. The Customs man only opened the one bag and went through it but couldn't find any food. I was glad he never opened the other bag which was full of Egg Salad Sandwiches, and peanut butter sandwiches we had brought for the starving teeming thousands,of Australia, and I was worried the Egg Salad ones would go off in the Australian heat, and can you imagine egg salad sandwiches going off on the plane over Queensland somewhere, The Humanity. Needless to say we missed the next flight they never held it for us and the next flight after that was filled up so we couldn't get on that either, so we were given the OK to use the VIP lounge until the flight we could take would go a few hours later. Needless to say by this time I'm completely pissed off so I just sat and sulked, while Anne had a shower and a meal from the great buffet they provided. We got to Cairns a day late and had to rejig the whole schedule because of that, and as I said I was totally pissed of promises had been made and not kept so we lost a second day of our vacation if not needlessly, at least because the Airline never kept their promise. After getting to Cairns everything went along swimmingly, we enjoyed our stay there and at Alice Springs, and Ayr's Rock, back to Alice Springs and on to Perth, the remotest big city in the world. Talk about Murphy's Law it broke out with a vengeance.
We finally got on our way to Cairns and when we got there and got to the hotel we had a relaxing the rest of the day just wandering around. Cairns is a nice small town and easy to fi nd things.
The next day we took a city snf surrounding area tour by bus and stopped for a tea break at a small cafe where they gave us each 2 large tea biscuits and heavy cream butter and jam, everything they give you to eat in Australia is large. When we returned to the hotel we didn't do much jet lag had set in i guess.
Sunday Mar 2nd we took a half day boat trip up the tidal estuary and saw some birds cormorants, sea eagles etc. We had a relaxing morning on the boat. It rained on and off but it didn't matter because we were under cover, and when we got back to the hotel Anne went to get a few things we needed at Woolworth's which wasn't to far away, and I sat down and wrote some post cards.
Evidently the town of Cairns has doubled in size over the previous five years, it seems much more happening than the previous time we were there a few years ago, lots of cruise ships coming in and lots of hustle and bustle.
Mar 3/03
took a plane AVRO RJ to Alice Springs on time went to the hotel and took a cab to the town centre, a ten dollar ride and looked around for a while. The town had two small Malls and a few souvenir shops, stores and restaurants, but they roll up the sidewalks after 5 PM. We went to Pizza Hut for supper and back to the hotel. Because we were waiting for the bus to take us to Ayr's Rock Uluru, I just had a piece of toast and a coffee I made myself and it cost $15.00 I just about shit, it was considered breakfast and I could have had a whole breakfast from the buffet, but because I only took toast I was charged the same as having an entire breakfast, Live and learn, that was the most expensive breakfast I ever had.
We went on a four hour bus ride to Ayr's rock and the Olgas which was another sort of rock outcroppings, and checked in to the Outback Pioneer, and were took on a tour of Ayr's Rock, and the Olgas. We were taken to the site a few times so the we could see it under different conditions, with the varying light conditions, once at dawn with the sun rising, and once in the evening with the sun setting, when they provided wine for everyone who wished, and once they actually drove around the whole thing. It was very interesting but we then had to get ready for the next leg of the journey to Perth West Australia, which is considered to be the most remote big city in the world.

Nicholas Miloff (Choleff)

The top picture is at a Macedonian Easter service Circa 1939 in back Row from left Ivan {Choleff] Miloff, Coochy {Choleff, unknown, and Nicholas [Choleff] Miloff holding me, Allan.

The second picture centre of front row with white shirt and arms folded holding a cigarette Nicholas {Choleff} Miloff taken 1943 at Canadian Blower and Forge, where war work was likely going on.

My father came to Canada from Bansco Bulgaria with his two brothers Ivan, and Coochy in I believe the late 1920s, to early thirties, The name Coochy is the way he told us and it is my spelling until I hear different. I don't know much about him except that he had the two older brothers that came with him, or brought him with them because of some turmoil at home. They had left sisters back in Bulgaria. All I know about his brothers is what my father told me. I met them perhaps each maybe ten times. John [Ivan] seemed to run a chicken farm outside Kitchener on about 10 acres beside the Dare Cookie Factory, where they had a barn full of chickens. Coochy was a gambler and had a private club for Gamblers in Kitchener, which was illegal at the time, but I was told the Mayor of Kitchener attended. The brothers had owned
and run a restaurant on Queen St outside the Kitchener Arena, where and when my father got to really love Hockey. While they owned the restaurant, and until the arena burnt down, the hockey players would come to the restaurant after the games, and my father got to know the players of that time and place quite well. Most famous of the players at the time for The Kitchener Waterloo Flying Dutchmen, was the Kraut Line, Milt Schmidt, Porky Dumart, and Bobby Bauer. The Kraut line went to the Boston Bruins en masse and my father was forever until his death a Bruins fan. My father would occasionally take me to games at Galt or Preston, and we would have to go on the Electric Train that ran down the middle of what is now highway 8 . It was very exciting just the ride on the train. The Kitchener Arena burnt down, and the games had to be held in the Waterloo Arena, until a new arena could be built, and it would be a the site of the old Army Base at the top of Borden Ave. near where we used to live with the Korbelases. Father when he attended the games would get carried away with himself hurling epithets at the opposing players, yelling and screaming at them, and all the while I am trying to pretend I'm not with him, even at a very young age. One time he was yelling and screaming at a Guelph player, so much calling him a Wop, and Dago to player came over the boards, and went for my father. I actually liked the player quite a lot. He never got very far his team mates held onto him, and I don't know what would have happened, the player, whose name escapes me for the minute was a tough one, but my father although small was quite tough himself. Anyway suffice it to say my father got carried away at hockey games. The player that came over the boards was playing for the Guelph Biltmores, and made it to the NHL, and was there until he tangled with Gordie Howe's elbow, and the blow was fatal to his hockey career. Father was a life long Boston Bruins and Kitchener Rangers fan and died in January of the year the Bruins won the Stanley Cup, so he never saw them get it, although he would have been very pleased. Thank you Bobby Orr. I was a Detroit fan and loved Gordie Howe, until Bobby Hull came along, and although I was always a Detroit fan, I became a Bobby Hull fan, I thought he did what he did effortlessly, and was poetry in motion. I had to always feel sorry for Bobby Hull because he never won a Stanley Cup, but I guess he did alright for himself. Father loved going to the show and would take me from time to time to see Tarzan, The Bowery Boys, and other kids movies, as well as grown up films as well. I remember him taking me to see Paul Muni in "I was a fugitive of the Chain Gang" among others. Father's brother Coochy was quite wealthy, or at least well off, that is until he got cancer, and then his sickness began to clean him out. He would have to come to Toronto by ambulance for treatment, not to mention the cost of treatment. He would die a couple years after being diagnosed. John went to the doctor one day and was diagnosed with cancer, and died about 4 weeks after. Father told me to visit him in the hospital, which I did and had to walk around the public ward several times, and finally asked a nurse which one he was because, he had lost about 200 lbs, in a very short time, like only a few weeks.
John died and there was only my father left over here. Shortly after John died father took us to the farm to check out the farm house to see what was there. Max, Rosemary, and myself were living in the orphanage at the time, and while going through the drawers we found a bunch of silver dollars, which we pocketed without saying anything, perhaps ten of fifteen. When we got back to the home we treated everyone at Beesy's Dairy until the money ran out. In the orphanage to a very great extent if anyone had something everyone did. It's a good thing Father never found out he would have been totally pissed off and when he got pissed off he would use his fist feet, and everything he had. Father was probably an alcoholic, but to be sure not a drunk, and to make that distinction, I never saw him stagger or falling down, or slurring his speech. He never missed work, and always handled himself in a sober fashion. Father could hold his liquor, even if he could not do without it. Father died in his sleep on New Years day 1971, or thereabouts.
All that was left of the Estates of the three of them was a run down house on the edge of Victoria Park in Kitchener. The house looked over the Baseball Park from Centre Field, and they had kind of a bleacher seat built out there so they could watch the games for free. After fathers death we had to contact a lawyer to take us through the legalities in connection with the estate, and as he already had one, which we discovered going through his papers, we contacted the one he had been using. The Lawyer told us that he wasn't fathers lawyer, that his father was and that he was just ending his fathers practice because, he had just died recently. The lawyer told us that we would have to pick and executor, and go down to Kitchener and see him there. When he called to make and appointment, it was to be during the week and I said that, that would be inconvenient because we all worked, and could we make it on a Saturday some time. He said that he had a golf date for a Saturday coming up and if we could be there early, that would be alright. We made it for the Saturday in question and got his address, on King St in Kitchener. We went down on the Saturday and when we got to the address it was on the top floor of the biggest building in Kitchener at the time, and we all looked at each other thinking there won't be much left of the estate when this firm completes probate, in this estate. We were told that our father owned the house on Victoria Park which wasn't worth much, perhaps about $8000.00 dollars, and a small bank account, which had just covered the funeral costs, with perhaps a couple hundred dollars left. He told us that we could sell the house and that the proceeds less his fee would be what we would get from the estate of my father. The Lawyer said that he had the house appraised and that it was in such bad shape that the appraisal was for about $8000.00 which seemed quite low, but on going to inspect the house ourselves we could see why. The house was old to start with, but the people who lived there had just pissed and crapped in the closet from time to time instead of going to the toilet, the wallpaper was just hanging, there were holes in the plaster, it was in rough shape. We decided that we couldn't put in on the market that way so decided to go down, on the weekends and clean it up a bit before we could sell it. We went down several Saturdays painting cleaning, disinfecting, anything we could do to make it a little more acceptable so people could have a look at it. We worked our asses off that summer. On our way back to Toronto one day when it was about 95 deg. f. Emile and I were racing along the 401 in my 1967 Pontiac with about 150000 miles on it and he had a newer Oldsmobile at the time, we went to his place for a dip in their pool. After having a swim we went home and when I pulled in the driveway the rad on the car collapsed, and the coolant went all over the road. I had to pull the rad out of the car, while thinking I hope this house is sold fast so we could perhaps buy a new car. The following Monday I had to get a ride to work, probably from Allan Howe who lived nearbye, and called the radiator shop to see how much it was going to cost the have the rad rebuilt. They said about $150.00. That same day I was asked by the boss to go somewhere near home to pick up a check, as I was from time to time. As I was near home in the CNR vehicle, I picked up the rad and took it to the shop, and when they saw the rad coming out of a CNR vehicle they said that it would be $50.00 off because it was for the CNR and I never argued with them. The next weekend we went back to Kitchener, and it was very hot again, very bright sun and we painted the outside of the stucco house white, and I thought I was going to to blind painting the white on white in that bright sun. All the while while painting and kind of thinking and talking amongst ourselves, I think I wonder if the town would be interested in the house to further extend Victoria Park, and suggest that we phone the town, and ask them. We all agreed, and because we were told that the most we could hope to get was $8000.00, we would ask for $12,000.00. I told Anne to call them, to ask if they were interested, which she did the following Monday. Anne called me at work to say that they were I told her to tell them $12,000.00 . She called them and told them, and they said sold, it was so easy I was left wondering if we should have said more, but that's what we said so that was it. We sold the house to the City of Kitchener for $12,000.00 dollars and they promptly tore it down, after all the work we had put into it. I was very surprised when we got the check from the Lawyer less $200.00 for his fees, I thought it would be much more considering it took about 14 months to close the file. As we had about 150,000 miles on my 1967 Pontiac we ordered a new car which we would pay cash for a 1973 Chevrolet Suburban, which took about 4 months to get.
I'm not sure what Max and Rosemary did with their share but I imagine it went to good use.
Father was buried in Woodland Cemetery in Kitchener with his two brothers and his name was to be put on the monument. About a year later we went down to Kitchener as we would from time to time to go to the Market, and went to check to see if the name was on the monument, which it wasn't. We called up the cemetery who said they would check on it and get back to us. They got back to us and said it was an oversight and would be done shortly. A few years later we went back to the Cemetery and this time couldn't find the plot so went to the office for guidance. They asked us for the name, which we gave them and they said that they had 2 Nicholas Miloffs, one in the infant section, and another which they gave us the number of and direction to. The infant had died at birth in 1942, and this was the first real inkling of another sibling. We spoke to Aunt Shirley and she said that mother had told her that she had triplets, one of which had died, and the other two had been given away at birth. The story was that the doctor said that mother couldn't take care of the children she had, and that he knew where the children would be well placed, and did that. I began to wonder if the reason mother took the two kids that weren't hers was that she was trying to replace the two she had given up. What a mystery.

Rosemary and Max 1953

Shortly after coming to Toronto in 1952 and shortly after all of the excitement had died down resulting from my running away from the orphanage mother started to talk to me about getting Max and Rosemary and bringing them to Toronto. In the summer of 1953 I decided to go back to Waterloo, and get Max and Rosemary. When I went back Max had gone to Camp and I wouldn't be able to bring him back, so I told Rosemary to pack her stuff into a shopping bag and go with me. She took all the stuff we could carry and off we went. We told her friends what we were doing but not to say anything for a while until after we had left. Rosemary was slated to go to Camp the next weekend, and so would be missing that. We got on the train and came to Toronto, leaving Max on his own. Rosemary enrolled in Alexander Muir Public School on Gladstone Ave in Parkdale and that September began public school in Toronto. After all of the excitement with the Childrens Aid Society calmed down, mother started to talk to me of getting Max. Mother was happy to have Rosemary with us as she was able to help with the two younger girls Anne and Heather, neither one of which was really hers. Rosemary would have been about 11 or 12 years old at the time. Although I'm repeating myself and never realized it at the time, mother was more interested in what we could do for her, than what she could do for us. I was working at the time, but not yet with the Railroad, and paying $15.00 per week board out of the $25.00 I was receiving. Eventually I went back, I don't remember how long later, but I went back to Waterloo to get Max and when I got there I talked to the kids, and asked where Max was and they said that my father had taken him out of the home, probably anticipating what was going to happen. It was lunch time and while talking to the kids I found out that Max was now in Victoria School in Kitchener, so I went to Victoria School and waited for the kids to come out for recess, and found Max and told him to come with me, which he did, so now the three of us were in Toronto on Northcote Ave. Max by this time was of High School age, and enrolled in Central Technical School as I did. About a year later Max would be encouraged to get a job which he did as a Telegraph Boy for the CNR, and b y this time I was working at Bathurst St for the CNR, and Max would come to me at work the odd time to see how he liked it, and would eventually transfer to Transportation our department and become a Car Checker as well. When Rosemary was old enough probably about 16 she was encouraged to get a job which she did, as an apprentice book binder for Bryant Press on Adelaide St in Toronto, and stay with them until her retirement. Rosemary was a lot like me, more of a happy person than Max. Max was always a sullen person and in the rare occasion that he was happy it didn't seem to last very long. If Max was mad at you he might not speak to you for weeks, and seemed to perpetually go around with a long face. Rosemary eventually met and married Emile A. and they had a couple of apartments until they bought a house on Browns Line just south of the QEW. Max met and married Hilda G. and they moved into a couple of apartments until they bought a house in Oshawa. I always surmised that part of the reason they were happy to get out of the house was because of George's up and down alcoholism, and drunkeness. George was also a snow plow operator in the winter time when it snowed and one night he was plowing down Shaw St. when he came upon a Car stopped on the street, and instead of going around the guy, George starts blowing his horn in front of the houses. Now George could have gone around the guy, and gone on his way but he stays there and blows his horn. This would not have been the worst thing in the world except that, the Guy was in a Police Car and George was drunk. They pulled George out of the truck and ran him in for drunk driving, and who could blame them. George lost his license for 3 months again, and his insurance went up, and he lost his drivers job and had to go back to slinging the garbage. As was said George had a horseshoe up his ass because he is approached on the job one day and asked if he would like to become a Building Inspector, at which he says yes, and is told to report to classes at the University of Toronto for one weeks training. George goes one day, and goes to the hotel for a few beers which turn into a dozen and comes home bombed. George doesn't go next day because of a hangover, goes the next day until noon when he goes to the pub for lunch, and never again goes back. That was the end of his Building Inspector gig. George was offered a few jobs that he didn't seem to be able to take advantage of. I neither drank or smoked, never took time off, and in my 40 years with the CNR was never offered a job. George would eventually be fired from the DSC for hitting one of the bosses, probably while he was drunk. George eventually got a job with Husband Transport as a service sort of person helping out in the shop, changing oil, etc. Rosemary had two children David and Susan, and Max went on to have four children Hollyanne, Tina, April, and Christopher. Max eventually sold his house in Oshawa and bought one in Gravenhurst, where he lives at present. When Max and Hilda went to get a marriage license and they filled out the application in the name section Max wrote Charles Mark Miloff, and Hilda says who the hell is Charles Mark Miloff. Although they had been going out together for a year or more she never knew that Max wasn't his real name, it was only a nickname my father gave him, because he liked Max Schmeling the German Boxer. Rosemary eventually retired and went to live in New Brunswick.

George Hamilton Gray

When my mother called me in 1952 and asked me to leave the orphanage she was living with George in 1401 Queen St West,Toronto, in Parkdale at Lansdowne and Queen. I thought that they were married but they weren't, because they got married some time later. I came down to Toronto and they took me to the CNE, Canadian National Exhibition, something every school kid in Ontario wanted to do. It was very exciting, what with all that was going on. There were many freebees at the Food Building, and a great show on the waterfront. Diving, water skiing, and most exciting an Air Show where they strafed targets in the lake and bombed targets in the lake, all very noisy, and jets flew very low over the crowd. Mother and George spent $50.00 that day and reeled me right in. I went back to the orphanage saying that I would think about coming back, thinking all the while I would, but wanting to give it a little more though. George seemed like a nice enough guy, and, I thought, I would have to be thinking of a job pretty soon, and I couldn't think of anything I could be doing in Kitchener Waterloo, so I made the move. As I have said George turned out to be a drunk and an alcoholic, every now and then going on the wagon, and when I first met him for a few months he was on the wagon. George had lost his drivers license as a result of an accident where he ran his car into his brother inlaw's car because he had no insurance, and the unsatisfied judgement fund had to pay $1000.00 towards the repairs to his brother inlaws car. As a result he could not get his license back until he paid back the $1000.00 with interest, which he eventually did, then got his drivers job back with the Department of Street Cleaning. When his crew wanted to get done with their beat early if I had nothing to do they would call on me to drive the truck, so they could all throw the garbage on the truck, so there was I driving the garbage truck down narrow streets, with cars parked on both sides without a drivers license. Whenever they got a lamp they would tear the cord off it and stuff it in an old burlap sack, and when they got an aluminum pot they would run over it with the truck and stuff that in another sack, and when Teflon frying pans came out everyone was throwing out the old cast iron pans, and when they got them George just kept them. He must have had fifty of them at one time or another. Many of them eventually made it to the cottage and we gave them away to anyone that wanted them, that weren't to thrilled with Teflon. Another thing they would get was Porno magazines like Playboy. We wold look at them and after we tired of them I would take them to work, and send them anonymously all over Canada in the CNR mail so guys in Northern BC or Northern Ontario, or the rural prairie towns would get a magazine in their mail and wonder why it had come to them. George's Brother Robert was a sheriff in Toronto, and at that time the only way people could get a divorce was on the grounds of adultery. The adultery had to be witnessed by someone, and the sheriff was the best person. There became a scandal in the city where sheriffs were swearing to witness adultery where none occurred, and Robert was caught up in that scandal, and was discharged. This was basically a stupid rule, why keep people together, who hated each other, or force them to go through this charade. Robert was eventually cleared, or the case was overthrown, and he was able to get paid for his lost time, but He had gotten a job as a chauffeur for a Vice President of Sears, and didn't want to give the job up.
When I decided to buy a piece of Crown Land George went in on it with me. When it came to registering the property George ask me how to do it. George already had a lawyer and we thought he could do it. I told George to register it, so that if he died, I would get the property, and that if died he would get it, and as it happened, the legalese was " Joint Tenants" which I wasn't aware of at the time. George went to the Lawyer, who I believe was a shyster, and the lawyer tells him to register it as "Tenants in Common" which meant that if he died, his share would go to his estate, and if I died my share would go to my estate, which would have been my mother in all likelihood. This eventually came back to bite me in the ass, when George died several years later. After mother died George was diagnosed with Cancer of the esophagus, and lasted for about 18 months until he died, at which time we actually got to see his and mothers will, which was a shock to us all. Mother and George had been total Pricks when writing this Will and their lawyer should have been disbarred for it as well. The only reason I saw the will was that when the Lawyer was handling the estate and was instructed to turn the property over to me, he over charged me for doing it, so I taxed the lawyer and had to get a copy of the Will to show the succession, and how it got to me.

Edith Eleanor Burgess

Edith Eleanor Miloff and Allan Miloff in photo taken around 1938 or 39 outside the house in Port Hope.

What can be said about my mother, for starters she was a very complex person, and in some ways very different from her siblings but in some ways, the same. Where she differed from the rest of them, was that she was a very hard working and ambitious person, and she never smoked or drank. Most of the choices and decisions she made were the wrong ones, especially the personal ones. I think that she thought that everyone was like a piece of clay that you could take and mould into what you would like them to be, and she could never do it, but never stopped trying. She was persistent to a fault, and where she resembled her siblings was that she was extremely competitive. Maybe because of the above I have always said, she never let the truth get in the way of a good story. She was very bright and could recite poetry by the hours and would cook up a storm if we even hinted of wanting a party for the guys at work, and loved doing it. When Rosemary, Max, and myself were in the orphanage from 1946 to 1952 she came down and visited us a couple of times but not much. She would always send a nice parcel at Christmas though. When and if my mother and father got talking about the family break up they blamed each other, and that I guess is not unusual. The facts were though as I perceived them, was that my mother was a Woman's Lib type before her time, and didn't even know what that was, and my father was an old fashion Eastern European who thought that women should stay at home a raise the kids. I remember mother taking off and living away from my father for a while and I was told it was in Hull Quebec, and I would have been about 3 years old. I don't know what happened to Max, because he would have been about one. Mother returned to father and had Rosemary in 1941. After that things get a little bit strange, because she always said, she had triplets but that, they had died. As I said I always took what mother said with a grain of salt, because she told so many conflicting stories you didn't know what to believe. One day in the 1990s when we went to Kitchener for a ride we decided to visit my fathers grave in the Woodland Cemetery, and couldn't find it, so we went to the office and told them we were looking for Nicholas Miloff, at which they check their records, and inform us that they have two Nicholas Miloffs, one was in the infants section, and was born in 1942, and where the other one, our father was. You could have knocked us over with a feather. Mother had never told us this. When we got home we told Aunt Shirley about this and asked her if she knew anything about it, and she said that our mother had said that when she went in the hospital, she indeed had, had triplets, but one had died, and the doctor said, she could not take care of the ones she had so he would find a good home for the other two. Lights started going off in my head, as I had always wondered why mother would have taken two girls from their mothers, hours after they were born, to raise them as her own, and incidentally did a terrible job doing it. Jesus Christ have I got two siblings out there somewhere that I have never met. Anyway I'm getting a little ahead of myself, and will try to stay in order. The final split came in 1944 mother left and we found ourselves in one foster home for a couple months and another with the Korbelases for over a year, until we were placed in the orphanage, myself for six years, Rosemary, for seven years, and Max for over seven years. The orphanage was not as unstable as our home had, or would have been, so I consider myself lucky to have been placed in there. I look at the job mother and George my stepfather did of raising Anne and Heather and shudder to think of what we, Rosemary, Max, and myself would have become had we been with them the whole time. In 1952 mother convinced me to run away from the orphanage and come to Toronto and live with her and George, which I did. I started school at Central Technical School but it wasn't long before hints started flying of all the things I could do, and get if I had a job. I was naive and it took me a while to realize that mother was a strict utilitarian, and she didn't really want me she wanted the room and board I would be providing if I was working, along with the other two roomers she had. In 1953 I went back to Waterloo, and got Rosemary, and 1954, I went back and got Max. It wasn't long after they had reached 15 or 16 that they were out working, paying room and board as well. As I said George was an on and off drunk and alcoholic, causing great friction in the house. Mother was not lazy though and she had many money making schemes. She did homework making kites, and packaging Christmas seals, and baby sitting children. As ambitious and hard working as mother was George was the opposite, being perhaps the laziest man I have ever met. He was a garbage man for the City of Toronto, and any time he had a few sick days piled up he would get sick, and from time to time if he had no sick time he would go on compensation with a sore back. When I first got to Toronto mother had a baby girl Anne who she said she had just had, and myself not knowing anything about how long it took baby's to develop never questioned that she was mothers. A couple years later though she gets a call from a friend of hers from the Cobourg area who says her daughter is pregnant and doesn't want to keep the child when it is born. Mother says the girl can come down and stay with us, and when the baby is due in a couple of weeks can check into the hospital using mothers named have the child, come out and leave it with mother and return home, which she does. I am thinking all the while there is something wrong here. At the same time I'm thinking what can I, or even should I do about it. The young woman has a child, who becomes Heather Jane Gray, who we will be calling our half sister even though she is not related at all. It took a while but at a later time, maybe a few years, I find out that this was exactly the way they got Anne as well. Many years later when Shirley told me of what mother had told her about the triplets, I began to wonder if this was her way of replacing the two children that had been taken from her, or that she had imagined had been taken from her, but that was a long time in coming. If mother got mad at us for one reason or another she would say, I'm calling the Lawyer tomorrow and having you removed from my will, as if that was to bring us back into line, and this was done on many occasions, but at 16 who is thinking of Wills. Mother is doing all of this home work and we are pressed into helping her with it, she is also baby sitting children for other people, and doing anything to make a buck to help pay for the house, which they bought for $7,500.00 and then largely because of the cockroaches they decide to try for a better house which they find a few blocks away on Tyndall Ave, number 13 right out side the Dufferin Gates of the CNE, Canadian National Exhibition grounds. This is going to really exacerbate her need for cash, as George is drinking his money as fast as he can. George is basically a week person who could be led by people at work who would only have to say, if he refused to go out with them, who wears the pants in your family. Mother and George were insurance poor, they had more money going out of the house on insurance than was really nessesary. One day after Rosemary and Max are married I decide to go to the Cabin at Pickerel River that I had bought, and mother was supposed to go to Port Hope to visit with her Mum and Dad and when I get home after the weekend George is acting very strange it seems to me, I ask mum what is the matter with George, and she says he blames you for telling on him. I say telling on him for what, and she tells me that she was in Port Hope and got a call, that George had another woman in the house, it seems he got drunk wound up on Jarvis St, where all the prostitutes hung out at the time, and brought one home. I said how could I for starters, there is not a phone at Pickerel River, and how would I even know, she just shrugs her shoulders. There was a newspaper, if it could be called that in Toronto at the time called " Flash" and it was a scandal sheet, and mother and George made it in there under the heading, "Woman takes taxi home from Port Hope" to find husband in bed with prostitute and even has a picture of the prostitute, and the stupid thing was she looked like an old bag lady probably in her 70s, any way George blamed me and things were never really the same again with me, not that they were ever really good. Anne and Heather were starting to grow up and were really getting spoiled by mum and George, but things in the house were not good. If I were going to the cabin I would take them from time to time just to get them away from the house, and all the tension associated with it. The CNR Canadian National Railways actually owned the land the cabin was on and after a few years of my going there sold it to John Warren the guy who owned the store up there, although I never knew that at the time. I decided to look into buying a piece of Crown Land which seemed to be always for sale at the Sportsman's Show in Toronto. I ask Max, George, who was on the wagon at the time, and Emile Rosemary's husband if they were interested in going in it with me. Emile and Rosemary had just bought a house on Brown's Line, Highway 27, and Max had just got married, and they were not interested as they had enough on their plate at the time, but George said he would go in on it with me. We bought the Crown Land and decided to move the cabin down to the lot and erect it temporarily until we decided what to do next whether to build one from scratch, or buy a prefab. That December Emile, myself and two other guys who were mums roomers went down the river with Everingham's barge cut the cottage in pieces with a hand saw and brought it back to the lot. It was pretty cold that night and we all slept in a tent on the lot, and the river partially froze, and we had to break the ice to tow the barge, but we managed it. We just loaded the cabin in a piled at the bottom of a hill which we would have to take it up next year. We left it there over the winter and the next year when we were getting ready to take it up the hill we decided to go fishing first and when we returned we would start the process of taking it up the hill. Gerry Parsons, another of mums roomers went with us to the cottage but decided he didn't want to go fishing, and stayed back. When we returned from fishing a few hours later we were ready for the hard work of getting the cabin from the bottom of the hill, but Gerry Parsons, a relatively small guy had done the whole thing himself. We couldn't believe it, but Gerry was a hard worker when there was work to be done. Gerry was a drunk, and a alcoholic, but if he was sober and there was work to be done, he couldn't be beaten, it was to bad because Gerry had many good jobs but he lost them, because of the drinking. If you could keep Gerry busy he was as hard a worker as you could possibly get, I always thought he should have been a slave, it would have been a healthier lifestyle. Gerry and I were alike in one area, and that was that we both loved the movies, and both thought that " The Third Man " was one of the best movies ever made. I often wonder what ever happened to Gerry he was such a good guy, and not even a bad drunk, when it got the better of him he would just curl up and go to sleep. Mother was a strict utilitarian and knew what everyone was good for and would use it to the fullest, and I often wondered why George, he seemed to have no redeeming values, and was as lazy as sin. We even got to thinking that George was Gay, and if he wasn't he was probably by-sexual, and perhaps that was why he was a tortured soul. George had a sister Mabel who had been married and had three kids, to a farmer whose family had a farm on the land that became the Tam-O-Shanter Golf course, so they were pretty well off, but she left him and became a pub crawler living with anyone that would keep her. Georges brother Robert was the only respectable member of the family as far as I could tell. Robert was married with two children and boy and a girl, and had been a Sheriff for the city of Toronto, until he was fired, but after taking the discharge to arbitration he got his job back, or the rights anyway, of which more I will relate under George Hamilton Gray. Mother always wanted to open and run a restaurant, which she did, in the Jarvis and Dundas area, she couldn't have picked a worse area, or actual restaurant, it was to big and unyielding, and needed to much work. We all pitched in to help clean the place up, but we also knew it would be to unwieldy for her. After a few weeks, or may a couple months it failed, but it was inevitable to us. Not to long after that mother had a stoke, and died, in March 1972. Rosemary, Max, Anne, Heather, or myself never expected anything from the will and we weren't surprised, as we thought that George would get it all anyway, but after George died and we got to see that actuall will we were surprised at when it was made and what was in it, or not in it.