Although biographical accounts of van Vogt have stated that he was born into a Dutch Canadian family, his parents were in fact German-speaking Mennonites, as were many of the inhabitants of rural Manitoba, and German was the language of the household in the author's early years. The family added "van" to their surname in order to make it sound Dutch, presumably in response to the anti-German sentiments common in Canada in the late 1930s. They first lived in Neville, a small, rural town in the neighboring province of Saskatchewan, where van Vogt's father and uncles were partners in a general store. At this time his father was studying law by correspondence and soon received his law degree. The family moved to Swift Current, Saskatchewan, and then Morden, Manitoba, before finally moving to the fast-growing city of Winnipeg, Manitoba, then the most important city on Canada's prairies, where his father took a position as the western Canadian agent for the Holland-American Shipping Lines.
Van Vogt, aged fourteen at the time of the move to Winnipeg, found the transition from small-town to big-city life traumatic.
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