Mayer Kirshenblatt was known as Mayer July, the hotheaded boy from Apt. His children called him Mayer Wildfire. While he spent most of his childhood in Polish public school and kheyder (Jewish school), he would rather watch the blacksmith at his anvil or the town kleptomaniac slip a live fish down her bosom. His real school was the town, which he would immortalize in words and images later in life.
Mayer’s father, Avner, left for Canada in 1928 for economic reasons. Mayer stayed in Poland with his mother, Rivka, and his three brothers. Hoping for work in a Toronto shoe factory, Mayer apprenticed with a shoemaker, but quit because all he did was carry the shoemaker’s baby around and empty the slop bucket. In 1934, Mayer finally arrived in Canada with his family and went to work in a sweatshop. After falling asleep at the sewing machine – he had stayed out late the night before – and running his finger under the needle, he turned to house painting. In the late 1940s, he opened his own wallpaper and paint store.
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