Civilization.ca - Christian Bennedsen - Scrapbook of a Life in Letters

Main Page

Timeline

4
A Dane in Little Italy

Old Ways: Staying Danish

Chris also kept in contact with the Danish–Canadian community. He joined Sunset Villa, a Danish–Canadian association, meeting place, and seniors’ home in Puslinch, Ontario, and attended their yearly Constitution Day dances. He received Modersmaalet, a Danish–Canadian community newspaper, and Scandinavian Forum, a Scandinavian–Canadian quarterly magazine, for many years.

Cover of the Sunset Villa Bulletin, 1979.
(CMC, Christian Bennedsen Collection, P40-1.2.001,
E2007-00527)

Yet Chris did not immerse himself deeply in the Danish-Canadian community. To him, the Danish-Canadians always looked down on him-he was just a poor farmer from a small town-because he spoke in dialect and not "real" Danish. With the Italians, however, Chris never felt that he was part of the lower classes-he was simply one of them.

Old Ways: Staying Danish

Listen to an interview in which Chris talks about feeling alienated from the larger Danish–Canadian community.
(CMC, Christian Bennedsen Collection)

In Denmark, Chris’s family and friends’ lives grew and changed. Sigvard married his high-school sweetheart, Birgit, and the couple had three children: Ole, Lone, and Tine. Chris’s sister, Ella, grew up in Chris’s absence and married Johnny Russell–Moller in the late 1960s. They had two children, Nicolas and Maiken.

Birgit and Sigvard Bennetzen, Chris’s brother and sister-in-law, Ribe, Denmark, ca 1954

Birgit and Sigvard Bennetzen, Chris's sister-in-law and brother, Ribe, Denmark, ca 1954.
(CMC, Christian Bennedsen Collection, P35-7.E1-49.001, E2007-00427)

- 9 -



Previous Page	Introduction	Timeline	Next Page