Oscar Brand My Mother's Cousin

Oscar Brand is my mother's cousin. He was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, on February 7th, 1920.

He is the folk singer who wrote Canada's national folk song: This Land of Ours (Something to Sing About).

His mother and my mother's mother were sisters and were of the Fleischman family on their mother's side*(Oscar's mother married a Brand and my mother's mother married a Shulman.) The Fleischmans were a Winnipeg Jewish family which immigrated to Canada in about 1905, from what was then a part of Byelorussia, in the Russian Empire but was then given back to the Ukraine in 1918 after the Russian Revolution.

My grandmother's Fleischman uncles began Fleischman's Margarine: In fact they invented margarine; later they began General Mills.

When Oscar was young his family moved to New York City as he had a medical problem which could be best cared for there.

He became interested in guitar, singing and folk music and sang on the New York City Public Broadcasting Radio Station and still is involved there.

In the 1960's he hosted a Canadian folk music television show on the CTV network, Let's Sing Out,
and introduced such folk singers as the folk-singing team of Ian and Sylvia on the show.

Oscar resides on Long Island, in New York State, in the United States.

* (Just a note here about my mother's father: His sister Sarah married an Oberman who opened Obie's Steam Baths in Winnipeg's North End which was a
focal point/mainstay of the Russian Jewish community in Winnipeg for about 100 years. I believe it closed a couple of years ago.)
(Also note that my mother's father and my mother's mother were Shulmans: They were cousins. As I wrote earlier my mother's mother was a Fleischman on her mother's side.)