A site visitor named Wendy seeks location where her husband’s birth family lived; can you help Wendy with her quest for information?

Over the years a number of people have made contact, sometimes after 50 or 60 years, with each other as a result of information that’s been shared at this website.

At other times people have received help, from other site visitors, to track down information that’s been really important for them to find.

I’m really pleased the site can serve such useful purposes.

Here’s a current project, which I find of much interest: A site visitor named Wendy seeks information related to the Long Branch Army Camp.

Please let me know if you can help Wendy in her quest.

On Nov. 2, 2019 Wendy wrote:

Hi, I am trying to find out if this is the place that my husband’s birth family lived? His family had 5 children and he was the baby. His Mother died when he was 7 months old and we understand the family had lived in some sort of housing. I am trying to get family information. Their last name was Jablonski. Do you have any idea if this was a place for immigrants?

Thank you

On Nov. 2, 2019, Jaan wrote (in part):

Good to read your message. The place you refer to, is it the Long Branch Army Camp (postwar housing in what is now Lakeview in Mississauga)?

Would you like me to post your message, at my website, as a request for information?

It’s good you have a clue to go by – the last name of Jablonski. Any additional details, that you may know of, would be useful if we go with a request for information at my website.

There were plenty of immigrants in the area in the postwar years. Whether there were immigrants at the Long Branch Army Camp is a good question. It’s something we can ask at my site, if we go that route.

I await further word from you. Would you like me to post a request for information at my site?

On Nov. 2, 2019 Wendy wrote (in part) by way of reply:

Thank you for getting back to me so quickly. I think what you are doing is awesome.

Yes please post ….

Yes we do have some information. The family names were Wladyslaw (Walter or Bill) and Janina or ( Jean) Bara-Jablonski. They used either names.There are 5 children Chester, Henry, and Irene but my husband and his one brother were adopted by the Breen family. We know what his birth name was Stanley was, still looking into his brothers’ birth name. We received adoption papers and all names were blacked out….ugh. Janina passed away in Nov. 1952 and Walter gave up 2 of the children for adoption. He passed away in April 1974.

There are only 3 children left and the Oldest Brother does not seem to remember much. The sister has no memory as she was the second youngest. My Brother in law passed away in 1996 and I never thought to ask all these questions to see if he remembered. I am trying to do a Biological Family Tree for my husband and it has been difficult. I have found when his parents came to Canada from Poland but I can’t seem to find where or when they were married. And some sources want to charge up to $2000.00 a little too rich for my blood. I was only curious not a necessity.

Thanks for your help.

Wendy added in a subsequent message:

The story I was told by a dear friend of both families was they lived at the camp.

If any site visitor can help, please let us know

If you have any information that might help Wendy with her quest, please contact me through this website.

Update: Nov. 3, 2019 response from Garry Burke

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I sent an email to Garry Burke, with whom I’ve been in touch extensively in recent years regarding the Long Branch Army Camp.

He writes (in part):

I didn’t know you had relocated to bucolic Stratford …

Yes, there was a Jablonski family in our hut. We lived in Hut 7, Apt 5. I was 7 years old, and I do recall they had little children, too small for me to take note of. My sister Myrna, three years older than me remembers my dad helping Mr. J complete his income tax form, and how the fellow was damned if he was going to do all “that,” and pay any more money to the government. Don’t know how much of the story was true, but my dad sure liked telling it.

Tell Wendy to check the Toronto City Directory for 1948 or 1949. The Army Camp may have been in Lakeview, but we were Toronto’s “problem.” Names and occupations of all people in the Camp would be included, children as well. Ed Bavington (Babington?) also has a record of all residents of the Camp. When I told him about ten years ago that we lived in Hut 7, he immediately told me my dad worked for the TTC …

Please feel free to give Wendy my phone number … I could explain what the shape of our hut (love that descriptor) was like, and the crowded conditions. There weren’t many immigrants in the Camp. And the term “DP” was spoken with distain by the working class. There were seen as taking other people’s jobs. The truth was, they worked harder, for less pay, and really saved. “Damn DPs!” my parents would grumble, until they got to know them. Then they were… okay.

Cheers, and keep up your excellent work.