Slovak Costume Wins Pulp Contract.

Sevc, Jan & Maria
Children: John, Mary, Anna.

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Jan Ondrej Sevc arrived in Quebec City on the White Star Liner Megantic, on July 22, 1928. He then proceeded to a farm in Western Canada to fulfill his part of the immigration requirement, agreed to prior to leaving his native Czechoslovakia (Slovak part). Eventually, as did many others at that time, he started to look for work elsewhere, criss­crossing Canada by "beating the train."

About this time, Joseph Ziga, one of his cousins in Montreal, had purchased some Crown land, really just bush, in what was to become Bradlo, and convinced Father to do the same. Tragically, Joseph was killed by a horse later in Bradlo.

In July 1931, Mother, Maria Anna (née Furova), arrived from Czechoslovakia to join father in his log cabin in the bush. Here they started their life together as settlers and pioneers. They had been married in 1928, in Pohorela, Slovakia, and she had spent three long years waiting to join him.

The first long, cold winter, with no income, was the hardest. The trek to Hearst for supplies was by foot. By spring, there were rumours that some pulp and paper companies were going to be in town to give out contracts to purchase pulpwood from the settlers. Father and other men from Bradlo walked to Hearst several times in hopes of landing one of these contracts, but always in vain. One day, Dad sent Mom to town, in the traditional Slovak clothes she always wore. Luck shone upon her, because that was the day representatives from the company were there. Amongst the waiting crowd of anxious men, pushing and shoving to get to the front of the line, their desperation nearly causing a riot, our young mom stood out in the crowd of men. To her great amazement and relief, she was noticed, given priority and called inside to obtain the coveted contract. Of course, she rushed home, walking the nine miles with her most prized possession clutched in her hands.

That summer, our parents hand­cut all the wood from their parcel of land. From the money earned, they gradually started to build a house, plant vegetables, raise farm animals, provide for the coming winter and start a family. John, Mary and Anna were born in Bradlo. The grocery store merchants and butcher shops in Hearst, such as West's and Chalykoff's, were particularly kind to the new immigrants and often provided credit to struggling families.

Bradlo had its own school and teacher, who lived in the teacher's house during the school year. Miss Mary Sawryga, later Mrs. Alex Bubnick, was the last teacher to live and teach in Bradlo – 1948-49. From then on, it was impossible to find a teacher to live in such a remote community, so the Bradlo School Board sent the children to the Hearst Public and High Schools. For this purpose, among others, the services of Martin's taxi, and later Bubnick's taxi, from Hearst, was hired. They were also required to pick up students from other concessions along the way to town. I particularly remember harrowing experiences in the Bombardier snowmobile, abandoning snowbound roads for shortcuts through the bush, traversing streams and swamps that threatened to break up in the spring. Since we were the first to be picked up and the last to be dropped off, my brother John, my sister Mary and I had the longest ride. My first teacher in town was Mr. Balfour, followed by Mrs. Hellings and Mr. Clayton L. Brown. In 1953, our family moved from Bradlo to Toronto, with wonderful memories of schoolmates in Hearst.

Dad, Jan Sevc, passed away on July 21, 1994, and Mom, Maria, on June 28, 2006, at the age of ninety-seven. My parents had first a baby boy in Bradlo, who died, and then the three of us. He is buried in the cemetery in Hearst, but I could not locate the grave anymore.

All three of us (John, Mary, Anna), live in Toronto. John's wife is from Fort William and is also of Slovak origin. They have two daughters – Johanna and Vanessa. Mary and her late husband, Mike, have three daughters all in Toronto – Marianne, Veronica and Milana. Marianne has two children – Adam and Marley. My husband, Radomir, is from Moravia in the Czech Republic. We do not have any children.

That parcel of land purchased by our father, and cleared so many years ago, today is overgrown with trees and shrubs and one can hardly recognize it from the road, or what's left of it. I continue to hope that my birth­place will one day flourish again, but not under such hardships as endured by our parents and the parents and families of all those early Hearst area pioneers.