War Brides. Melynda Jarratt
experiences coming to Canada as the wife of a Canadian serviceman. Betty Oliphant became the head and inspiration of the National Ballet School of Canada, and was considered one of the country’s leading professionals until her death in 2004. And in 2006, Jean Spear was honoured by Queen Elizabeth II when she received the Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in Buckingham Palace.
In the 1970s when the last of the children flew the nest, and later, as husbands started to pass away, many returned to their immigrant roots and revived long defunct War Brides organisations in villages, towns and cities across the country. The revival began in Saskatchewan, then spread like wildfire across Canada until nearly every province had an official War Brides Association. Today, the War Brides may be in their eighties, but the groups provide a tangible connection to a sisterhood, which despite their differences, share so many similarities.
The groups also symbolize Canada’s continued fascination with the War Bride story more than sixty years after the end of the Second World War. Every year, there are War Bride reunions from Regina, Saskatchewan to Halifax, Nova Scotia; from Peterborough, Ontario to Fredericton, New Brunswick, and even though they always say ‘this will be the last one’ there always seems to be another.
In 2006, the sixtieth anniversary of the War Brides’ arrival in Canada was celebrated across the country. Six of ten provinces declared 2006 Year of the War Bride and in November, the largest gathering of War Brides since 1946 made a pilgrimage to Pier 21 in Halifax on board VIA Rail’s special War Bride train. Age and time have not slowed them down. They are still the bright young lasses who caught the sparkle in a Canadian’s eye and fell in love with him in the midst of the Second World War.
The War Brides came to Canada at a time when there was a renewed sense of optimism that things could be better after six long years of war. Anything was possible, so long as one was willing to work for it. Together with their husbands and families, they helped shape the Canada we know today, reinforcing British cultural traditions and fostering emotional ties with the Mother Country that have been passed on with pride to the next generations. Whether they were English, Scottish, Irish or Welsh, their legacy is alive in the one in thirty Canadians who can count a War Bride in their family tree.
| INTRODUCTION BY MELYNDA JARRATT | |
| THE ONLY PLACE SHE WANTED TO BE | JEAN (KEEGAN) PAUL |
| RATHER THAN LOSE HIM, I MARRIED HIM | BETTY (LOWTHIAN) HILLMAN |
| THERE WAS A COLOUR BAR | MARY (HARDIE) GERO |
| NO HARMONY IN HARMONY JUNCTION | ELIZABETH (KELLY) MACDONALD |
| TIME IS SHORT | MILDRED (YOUNG) SOWERS |
| A UNION JACK ON HER GRAVE | MARY (FLETCHER) SHEPPARD |
| THE TOWN THAT WAR BRIDES BUILT | MARION (ELLIOT) HODDINOTT |
| EVERYTHING WILL BE FINE | ROSE (O’REILLY) BOULAY |
When we think of the War Bride experience one of the first things that comes to mind is the long train journey across the vastness of the Canadian landscape, but War Brides who came to the Maritime provinces had geography on their side.
For women headed to Halifax, the long transatlantic journey ended the moment her ship landed at Pier 21. When War Bride Marguerite Turner of Leeds, England arrived in March 1946 she was thrilled to see her husband Jim waving at her from atop the building facing the Aquitania. ‘I remember it clearly. He was standing on the roof, wearing a brown pinstripe suit and he had a brown fedora and I was standing on the side at the rail of the ship and he was dead opposite me with two other chaps’.1
That kind of a reunion was unusual; most British wives had a long distance ahead of them and the vast majority did not meet their husbands in Halifax. For those men waiting patiently in Quebec, Ontario and especially out west, another five more days would pass as their wives made their way across Canada by train.
In 1946 Canada consisted of 11.5 million people living in nine provinces and two territories, stretching nearly 4,000 miles from Nova Scotia on the east coast to British Columbia on the west.
The Maritime region, where Halifax is located, consisted of three eastern provinces, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. Together they had a combined population of just over one million people2 and of these, most lived in a rural setting, either on a farm or out in the country, far away from the closest city or town.3
Compared to Ontario and Quebec, the Maritimes were a mainly rural population. In 1946 there were only three or four big cities in the whole of the region, the main ones being Halifax, followed by Saint John and Moncton, New Brunswick, the hub of the Maritimes where trains travelling east and west would pass through. The whole of Prince Edward Island had only 95,000 people and the majority lived on farms.4 Most people in the Maritimes worked in the resource-based economies of farming, forestry, fisheries and mining as had their forefathers for generations.
The three provinces share a unique cultural heritage that is tied to 400 years of European settlement as well as a pattern of immigration that brought newcomers mainly from France (known as Acadians), England, Scotland and Ireland. There is also an Aboriginal presence stretching back more than 10,000 years with Mi’kmaq and Maliseet settlements throughout the region, and even Black Loyalists – former slaves – who were promised their freedom for supporting the British during the American Revolution. The French-speaking Acadians shaped the character of the region and there were immigrants from other countries such as Lebanon, Italy and Eastern Europe, but for the most part Maritime Canada in the postwar years was English speaking and place names like New Glasgow, Newcastle and Hampshire reflected its British heritage.
Newfoundland is often mistakenly included as one of the Maritime provinces but it isn’t today and it certainly wasn’t in 1946. As Newfoundland had not yet joined the Confederation – and wouldn’t until 1949 – War Brides who went to Newfoundland were, in fact, going to another country and when they arrived in Halifax they still had a long way to go by ferry before they were home.5
But War Brides who were headed to Halifax or Dartmouth could have taken a taxi to their new homes or driven to surrounding communities like
Map of Maritimes, Canada including Newfoundland and Labrador. The Maritimes included Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick. Newfoundland did not become part of Canada until 1949 so War Brides who travelled there were headed to another country.
Truro in a couple of hours. Depending on the weather, those destined to the far-flung reaches of Cape Breton or New Brunswick would be in their husband’s arms in less than a half-day by train. And although Prince Edward Island was accessible only by ferry, War Brides who were headed to PEI were at home, bags unpacked and sipping a cup of tea a long time before their shipmates who were going to Quebec and Ontario.
London-born War Bride Beatrice MacIntosh came to Halifax on the Mauretania in March 1946 destined for South Harbour, Cape Breton. She had no idea of the hardship she caused her husband who had the wrong date of his wife’s ‘imminent arrival’ in Halifax. His long journey by snowshoe, dog sleigh, foot, ferry, bus and horse sleigh in the middle of a cold Cape Breton winter amounted to a journey of epic proportions.
He assumed that the War Brides for Cape Breton would be sent by train from Halifax to Sydney. It was February, mid-winter, and the roads were not open. He started out by snow shoes to Big Intervale. He was joined by a local friend who also