There are more than a few people who do not understand how all these small cities throughout Ontario can to have a small subset of Jewish residents. At one time, there were literally tens of small towns and bigger town that had at least a smattering of Jewish folks living in them. It all began with the mass migrations of the Jewish people along with the millions of other immigrants who left their traditional homes in search of a better life for themselves and their families. They boarded ships like the one in the picture to the side and sailed in crammed quarters to the shores of North America. Millions went to the ports on the Eastern Seaboard of the United States but tens of thousands also found their way to Canada. Some came here because they already had relatives waiting for them. Others came because they arrived at the European ports and took passage on the first ship that was available.
They arrived eventually to the large cities like Montreal which was easy enough to get to by train or carriage or another boat. However, it was soon apparent that cities like New York and Montreal could not accommodate all the immigrants and absorb them easily so people began to move on outwards into the wilds of Southern Ontario.
Many began by getting carts and pedling goods which they bought cheap in the Kensington Market for instance in downtown Toronto and then hit the byways between Toronto and Hamilton and then Hamilton to St. Catharines. There have been books written documenting the ways in which pedlars expanded the horizons of the new immigrants and led them to new towns where they settled down. The last picture on this page is a picture of Morris Slepkov who settled first in Philadelphia and then followed an uncle and aunt to join other family members in Toronto where he opened a gift shop in Kensington. However, with two adopted nieces in his household and an infant daughter, he knew he would never make enough money to support his family in Kensington so he took advantage of a business for sale in St. Catharines that he heard about from a cousin and the rest was history.
