Melynda Jarratt - War Brides: The Stories of the Women Who Left Everything Behind to Follow the Men They Loved

WAR BRIDES
The stories of the women who left everything
behind to follow the men they loved

WAR BRIDES
The stories of the women who left everything
behind to follow the men they loved

MELYNDA JARRATT

Copyright Melynda Jarratt, 2009
Originally published by Tempus Publishing Limited in 2007.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.

Project Editor: Michael Carroll
Copy Editor: Jason Karp
Printer: Webcom

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Jarratt, Melynda
War brides : the stories of the women who left everything behind to follow the men they loved / by Melynda Jarratt.

ISBN 978-1-55488-386-8

1.War brides--Canada--Biography. 2. War brides--Great Britain--Biography. 3. Women immigrants--Canada-Biography. I. Title.

D810.W7J39 2009 940.53082 C2009-900302-3

1 2 3 4 5 13 12 11 10 09

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and The Association for the Export of Canadian Books, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishers Tax Credit program, and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.

Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.

J. Kirk Howard, President

Printed and bound in Canada.

www.dundurn.com

Cover Images:

Left: Isobel Zoe (Blair) Boone and son, Gordon, in Rowena, New Brunswick, 1950.

Top: RMS Mauretania arriving at Halifax, Nova Scotia on 24 August 1946.

Right: John and Morfydd (Morgan) Gibson of the Black Watch Regiment on their wedding day, 6 September 1944. Bottom foreground: Rose and pen copyright iStockphoto.com.

Bottom background: Letter from Private Marshall Boone of the Carleton York Regiment to his fiance, Zoe Blair, when he was a prisoner of war in Germany.

This book is dedicated to my War Bride friends Doris (Field) Lloyd
and Zoe (Blair) Boone and to my mother Lucy (Hennessy) Jarratt

Contents

by Melynda Jarratt

Table I Rsum of Marriages and Births of known marriages
and births for servicemen married while serving
outside Canada to 31 December 1946

Table III Immigration to Canada by War Brides and
Their Children 19421948

1 Betty Hillman

2 Jean Paul and baby Christine

3 Mary and Al Geros wedding day

4 Addison and Elizabeth MacDonalds wedding day

5 Mildred and Harold Sowers wedding day

6 Mary Sheppards medals

7 Conrad and Joan Landry on their wedding day

8 Rose and Horace Boulay on their wedding day

9 Henrietta Pronovost

10 Joyce and Bob Bezeau on their wedding day

11 John and Morfydd Gibson on their wedding day

12 Margaret Bristow Eaton and her two children on arrival in Chatham

13 Wilson and Martha Stauffer on their wedding day

14 Les and Rita Buckrell on their wedding day

15 Margaret Bell and her husband on a swing at his familys farm

16 Norman and Gwen Hall

17 Elizabeth Wasnidge on her wedding day

18 Margot and Ted Carmichael

19 Doris Barrs immigration ID

20 Doris Barrs Canadian Travel Certificate

21 Joan and John Reichardts wedding day

22 Dix and Joni Shuttleworths wedding day

23 Doris and Norman Butt outside her family home

24 John and Peggy Sheffield on their wedding day

25 Family portrait of Dave and Gwen Keele Zradicka with son David

26 Thomas and Barbara Warriners wedding day

27 Betty Wright poses in front of the familys Studebaker

28 Olive and Lloyd Cochrane on their wedding day

29 Ralph and Doris Lloyd in a wartime studio portrait

30 War Brides and children on board the Arosa Sun

31 Pauline and Grant Worthylake in their service uniforms

32 Ron and Dora Addison in their service uniforms

33 Lilian Olson and son Keith on the University of Manitoba campus in Winnipeg

34 Delice and Tom Wilby in a wartime studio portrait

35 Doug and Edna Simpson on their wedding day

36 The plane that took Ann Lawrence Johnston back to Scotland in December 1946

37 Ann and Jack Johnstons wedding day

38 Dewey and Madeline Fitzgerald outside his family home

39 The telegram that Madeline received informing her of her husbands death

40 Phyllis Grover and daughter Haroldene in Fredericton, New Brunswick

41 Zoe Boone at the graduation of her Airframe Mechanic class

42 Mac Hooker with baby daughter Carole

43 Margaret and Don Black in a photo taken in Glasgow

44 The Croydon Canucks

45 Sheila Walshes letter from Canadas Department of Citizenship and Immigration

46 Joseph Taylor Sr., Joe Jr. and mother in a family portrait taken soon after the couples wedding

47 Grace and Hugh Clark in a studio portrait

48 Dorothy Abraham as a nurse with the Volunteer Aid Detachment

Maps

I have wanted to write a history of Canadian War Brides for twenty years now, since I first started working on my Masters Thesis in History at the University of New Brunswick in 1987.

Over the past two decades I have met thousands of War Brides and Ive always known that inside each one of them is a wonderful story just waiting to be told but the opportunity to sit down and actually write the book never came my way. So when I was approached by Tempus Publishing in the fall of 2006 to write a history of Canadas War Brides I naturally jumped at the chance. There are many people who helped make this book possible. First of all Id like to thank Sophie Bradshaw and Lisa Mitchell of Tempus for giving me the chance to fulfill my dream. If it hadnt been for their interest in the War Bride story the book would never have been realized.

The first person I went to for help was passenger lists researcher, Debbie Beavis, webmaster of www.warbrides.co.uk, whose War Bride listserv gave me the medium through which to contact many of these women, their children and grandchildren who are connected through the Internet. Debbies listerv is now in the capable hands of Patricia Tanner, webmaster of WeddingsPastAndPresent.com. Tricia continues to be as helpful as her predecessor was in assisting researchers and writers who are working on War Bride projects.

Linda Granfield, author of