My father died at a young age in 1969 and it broke my mother’s heart. She lived to see eighty-one.
When I think of my parents I think of theirs as a love story; a story of forging a new life in a world away from home and family. When I close my eyes I see my young, elegantly dressed mother standing on Pier 21 not knowing what life was about to throw her way; not knowing that she would face it with great courage and dignity; not knowing she was going to make a difference to this new country of hers and that she was going to teach her beloved children that courage and dignity in adversity made them very proud children indeed.
Contributed by Valerie MacDonald, daughter of Elizabeth and Addison MacDonald.
Time Is Short
Mildred (Young) Sowers
Mildred (Young) Sowers was born in Buffalo, New York in 1924. Her parents returned to England in the Depression and lived in Thornton Heath. She married Harold Sowers from Fredericton, New Brunswick.
One summer evening in 1941, seventeen-year-old Mildred Young and her friend Joan were in Croydon when they met two Canadian soldiers looking at photographs in a shop window.
One of the soldiers, Harold Sowers, was a member of the Carleton York Regiment and he and his friend Eddie were stationed nearby at Caterham. The four young people struck up a conversation and agreed to meet again later.
Mildred and Harold liked each other from the start and within a few weeks she took him home to meet her parents in Thornton Heath. Mildred’s younger brother, Lawrie, was away in the Navy and her older brother Billy had been killed in an air raid in August 1940. As the only child left at home, her parents were naturally concerned about this Canadian soldier, but they welcomed Harold and he soon became a fixture at the Young household.
Everything was going smoothly for Mildred and Harold until they missed the bus back home one evening. There wasn’t another from Croydon back to Thornton Heath for over an hour so they walked several miles home. Coming up Norbury Avenue, they saw Mr Young waiting by the front gate, obviously upset.
Mildred was sent inside and Harold got a stern warning: ‘If anything has happened to my Mildred, there is nothing I wouldn’t do to you!’
Mildred and Harold became engaged in 1943. Harold would not consider marriage until after the war ended because so many women who married servicemen were widowed and he didn’t want Mildred to be one of them. Soon after VE Day Harold returned to England and they set a date of 24 July 1945. His regiment was being repatriated to Canada so in order for him to remain overseas until the wedding he had to join the 3rd Battalion of the North Shore Regiment, where he served with the Occupational Forces in Germany.
When the time came for Harold to travel to England for the wedding, he only got as far as Calais, France. The British Railway was on strike and only British soldiers were crossing the English Channel to Dover. Harold was desperate to get across; he couldn’t miss his own wedding! He tried every way he could think of to get through. He even tore all the Canadian badges off his tunic and tried to sound British, but that didn’t fool the guards; they knew he was Canadian.
Meanwhile, back in Thornton Heath, everyone was busy making arrangements for the wedding. The circumstances which transpired over the next days and weeks were so unusual that a light-hearted account of the ceremony appeared in the New Brunswick Telegraph Journal back in Canada.
Wedding Bells Ring Loudly Three Times Before Final Take
Sgt. Major Harold Sowers and Bride-Elect Had Tough Time Getting Married
Reception Before the Marriage
The Minister’s First Marriage in the Parish
All Ended Happily
Already postponed once, the marriage of Company Sergeant Major Harold D.E. Sowers of Sheffield, New Brunswick, now overseas, and Miss Mildred Young of Norbury Avenue, Thornton Heath, was scheduled to take place on a Monday not long ago.
The guests assembled at the church where the ceremony was to take place and at five minutes to the hour when the bride and groom were to stand before the minister and become man and wife, a messenger arrived with a message which postponed the ceremony until 3 o’clock, as the Sergeant Major, the groom, was delayed by circumstances beyond his control. Three o’clock arrived. The minister, waiting patiently to begin the ceremony, and the bride-to-be glanced anxiously at the church door, waiting for the groom to arrive, but the groom did not show up. The bride had gone to a lot of trouble for the occasion, so the reception was held anyway – before the marriage. Even the wedding cake was cut and eaten.
Next day, the Sergeant Major arrived from Germany. He had been held up along with 10,000 other servicemen at Calais because of a rail strike. So arrangements were made to have the marriage take place the following Saturday.
Saturday came and over twenty of the original guests who wanted to witness the marriage they had been invited to the previous Monday were on hand, as well as the groom, who arrived bright and early for his wedding. This time the groom and the guests waiting patiently, the groom gazing at the church door waiting and hoping to see the bride appear, but this time there was a groom and no bride. Ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five minutes passed slowly, and still no bride. Then there appeared another messenger, this time with a message from the bride, saying that the automobile in which she was riding to the church had broken down.
One of the guests ran out into the road and thumbed a passing motorist to beg for help. Away they sped to the bride’s home to pick up the trail from there. The bride was not home and they could not locate the broken down automobile, but after searching for some time, they came across the vehicle on a side road. There was the bride, nearly in tears. Practically snatching her up bodily, they hustled her into the other automobile and sped away to the church.
To the tune of the Bridal Chorus, the happy couple, finally united, met in front of the minister, who gave a sigh of relief as he commenced the wedding ceremony. The Revd J. Freeman was the new vicar at St Oswald’s Church, and this was his first marriage in his new parish. What a time he had to get it started!
Wearing a heavily brocaded satin gown with a long train and embroidered silk net veil surmounted by a headdress of feathers, the bride was given away by her father …The groom wore, along with other necessities for a marriage, a beam on his face as he gazed at his bride and deep in his heart apparently had a thought – the third time always takes.
A second, smaller reception was held at the bride’s home, this time with the groom, after which the happy couple left for their honeymoon in Seaford.
The newlyweds had one month together before he was repatriated to Canada at Christmas 1945 and it was six months before they were reunited.
Mildred sailed on the Lady Nelson from Southampton, arriving at Pier 21 in Halifax on 21 June 1946. A War Bride train took her on the short trip to Moncton, New Brunswick where Harold and another couple were waiting. The next day they drove to Harold’s family home in Sheffield, a small farming community outside of Fredericton, and along the way she was treated to fresh strawberries from a roadside stand, her first taste of New Brunswick.
An English War Bride was quite an attraction in Sheffield with her accent and funny expressions. The first time Mildred saw a moose, she called it a ‘gentleman moose’, a phrase that sent everyone into fits of laughter.
Mildred was a city girl and living in the country was difficult to get used to but she learned how to stretch pennies, earning extra money trapping muskrats and selling pelts. Harold’s sister Dean and her husband Tommy lived on a farm nearby and they shared their livestock and vegetables. Deer and moose meat were plentiful in season. With times rough for everyone, people looked out for each other and Mildred managed to cope.
Next door lived Celia, who also happened to be a War Bride, and Mildred was fortunate to find a second family away from home with her friend