Cindy remembers going for a visit to see the relatives in England and everyone thought Jean had really ‘made it’ now. Jean lived in a nice home in the city and she even went to the hairdresser!
Jean and Charlie Paul had six children. Most grew up to have university educations and all have been successful in their own right. Charlie was recognized for his work with the Aboriginal community with an honorary PhD by St Thomas University in Fredericton, and could now carry the title Dr Charlie Paul. He and Jean were further honoured when they were invited to sit next to the table of Prince Philip and Princess Anne during a Royal Visit in 1986. While in England, they never got that close to the Royals. Had anyone bothered to ask, they would have heard the story of Sachem Gabe Acquin, Charlie’s grandfather and the founder of what is now St Mary’s First Nation in Fredericton.
Gabe Acquin was a leader in the Wolastoqiyik (Maliseet) community and was frequently coming and going from the Lt Governor’s residence along the Saint John River in the 1800s. During the Royal Visit of 1860 Gabe took the Prince of Wales for an unscheduled canoe ride along the river. The Prince was supposed to be at church and couldn’t be found. He showed up late for the service and shortly after that Gabe was invited to England by the Royal Family to visit and demonstrate Wolastoqiyik culture to the people of London.
In 1991, Jean was diagnosed with cancer and the four Keegan sisters came together for the very last time for Christmas in New Brunswick. It was an emotional gathering for the sisters and they were grateful to spend the last moments of Jean’s life at her side. When Jean finally slipped away soon after the New Year, her family, friends, and Natives from all over Maliseet and Mi’kmaq territory came to the funeral mass which was conducted in both the English and Maliseet languages in her honour.
Jean died sixteen years ago but her memory lives on. In December 2005 her grandson TJ Burke, the first Aboriginal member of the New Brunswick Legislative Assembly (now Attorney General and Minister of Justice in the provincial Liberal government), introduced a motion to have 2006 declared Year of the War Bride in honour of his grandmother.
The idea soon caught on, and before the year was out, nearly every province in Canada followed suit: in villages, towns and cities across the country, Canadians celebrated the Year of the War Bride in 2006, honouring this very special group of citizens who helped build the Canada we know today.
Postscript: Charlie Paul died in 1997 knowing that he and Jean did the best they could for their children. Their oldest daughter, Christine, is a hairdresser and moved back to Tobique First Nation Reserve after living in Fredericton. Stewart has been the Chief of Tobique since 1987. Nick has a Masters Degree in Social Work and works in Tobique. Cindy has a Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Education and was a teacher for many years. She lives in Fredericton. Lindsay was a journalist and served on the Tobique Band Council. Pam, the baby, has a Bachelor of Social Work and works in Fredericton. Today, there are sixteen grandchildren and sixteen great grandchildren of Jean and Charlie Paul.
Rather Than Lose Him,
I Married Him Betty (Lowthian) Hillman
Betty (Lowthian) Hillman came to an isolated farm in Hawkin’s Junction, New Brunswick.
Betty Lowthian was an Academy Girl dancer in the Isle of Wight dance troupe called Concert Party when she met her Canadian husband, Doug Hillman of Millville, New Brunswick.
Concert Party was a wartime entertainment company that grew out of Nesta Meech’s dance school in the Isle of Wight. Betty remembers it consisted of ‘a comedian, a contortionist, a baritone, a soprano, a pianist, a male tap dancer named Mr Ward, and the six-member Academy Girls dance troupe’, of which Betty was one.
The war was on and the Isle of Wight was transformed into a training centre for the British Army, with Canadian and Americans also being trained there for the Dieppe raid. The performers would travel by private bus to different army camps to entertain the troops.
Betty was a member of Concert Party for four years, from the age of fourteen to eighteen. ‘I finished school at age fourteen and the next year I tried to join the forces,’ she explains. ‘But when I saw the recruiter I was told to come back in three years. By being in the Concert Party I felt I was helping the effort in my own small way.’
She recalls that they had beautiful costumes made by their dressmaker, Mrs Sloper, and sometimes they would back up Nesta Meech when she sang. They did all kinds of routines, including tap and soft shoe dancing, and after their performances there was always a big meal in the Sergeant’s Mess.
On two occasions, they did a show at Camp Hill Prison. The convicts were in charge of the curtains and when the show was over they gave the beautiful young dancers flowers called rose buttonholes that were grown in the prison gardens. A guided tour of the cells and a buffet lunch followed. Not surprisingly, the prisoners were very happy when the Academy Dancers performed!
Betty Lowthian was born in 1927 at Newport, Isle of Wight. Her mother’s father, Charles Price, was a sea captain who owned two merchant ships, the Wessex and the Moultonian. Charles was captain of the Wessex and Betty’s father, Albert Lowthian, later became first mate. Betty’s paternal grandfather, William Lowthian, came from Carlisle, Cumberland County and he worked for the railway. Her mother Florence met Albert when he was stationed on the island with the Argyle and Southern Highlanders.
Betty had an idyllic life growing up on the Isle of Wight. Her favourite memories are of Christmas when the neighbourhood would be full of the sounds of caroling and her mother and aunts would make Christmas pudding. She remembers one Christmas when the milkman stopped at every house with his horse and cart. He ladled out the cream and milk for his customers and by the time he got to the end of their road he was rather tipsy since everyone wanted to give him a Christmas drink.
Betty was only twelve years old when the war broke out and her life was soon transformed. The island was a target for the Germans because it had a shipyard and housed two aircraft factories. Everyone was supplied with gas masks and trained how to put them on in case of a gas attack. Betty’s family had their own air-raid shelter and she recalls that some nights the warning siren would go off three or four times so they didn’t get much sleep. A searchlight at the bottom of their field would pinpoint oncoming night bombers as the target for ack-ack gunners.
Betty attended Parkhurst School until age fourteen and then joined the dance troupe. When she wasn’t performing with Concert Party she worked in her aunt’s café, Ma Freemon’s, in the evenings and weekends. She also worked as a shop assistant for the Maypole Dairy.
One evening in 1944 Betty was working at Ma Freemon’s when Doug Hillman came in and asked her for a date. He was in the Provost Corps (Military Police) and he looked smart, but she was a bit dubious at first.
‘I thought he was good looking so eventually I agreed to go see Gone with the Wind with him. I was sixteen and he was twenty-one.’
Over the next two years Betty and Doug saw as much of each other as they could. Doug had already asked her to marry him when she was sixteen but at the time she thought he was crazy. By age eighteen she had to make up her mind.
‘He was coming back to Canada and I had to make a decision,’ she says. ‘Rather than lose him, I married him.’
Doug and Betty were married on 6 September 1945 and she came to Canada ten months later in July 1946. Leaving her family was very difficult and the trip across the Atlantic memorable, but nothing could have prepared Betty for the new life she would live on a mixed farm in Hawkin’s Corner, New Brunswick. From the beautiful surroundings of Newport to an isolated, rural farmhouse and a household of three men – her husband, his brother Les, and their uncle, an eighty-seven-year-old bachelor – Betty was in for a culture shock.
Doug met Betty at the Woodstock, NB train station and the next day they proceeded by car to his uncle’s farm. Ladies from the Women’s Institute met with Betty and went out of their way to make her feel