My cousins, Patsy Hennessy and Sharon Olscamp, my friends Jan Walker (who happens to be the daughter of War Bride Bridget (Murphy) Sims and Sandy Coutts- Sutherland helped by reviewing the text and providing encouragement at critical junctures. My friend Sharlene Keith and long time editor/writer Meris K. Brookland typed up the many handwritten submissions. K provided some excellent editorial advice, even writing the first drafts of some of the stories you see here. Also Todd Spencer, a promising history student at my alma mater, the University of New Brunswick, did some research at the Harriet Irving Library in the microfilm reels and graphic designer Mila Jones provided the maps.
There were also many people who submitted stories which could not be included in this volume due to lack of space. Thank you everyone for your submissions. Perhaps they will appear in another volume on this subject!
And last but not least, I’d like to thank my husband Dan Weston who spent many late nights alone, preparing supper for me so that I’d have something good to eat when I came home. Without his day to day support I wouldn’t have been able to get to the end of this book.
Melynda Jarratt, BA, MA, Diploma Digital Media
In the fall of 1990, I was preparing to depart for basic training for the United States Armed Forces. My family had gathered for a farewell dinner in Fredericton and to offer their best wishes before seeing me off for the next six months. The women of my family, including my grandmother, Jean (Keegan) Paul, a British War Bride from Couldson, Surrey – whose story is the first in this book – were gathered in the kitchen telling stories in Maliseet about the brave men they knew from the Tobique Reserve who left for military service during the Second World War. Some they spoke of fondly, others posthumously, and in the rare occasion, jokingly.
“Will nee he come home again?” my grandmother asked. Unsure if this was misplaced Maliseet I turned to my mother who was smiling at me nodding her head. She repeated my grandmother’s words. Totally confused, they offered me this story of a soldier preparing to leave for basic military training during the Second World War. “Will nee he come home again” was the tale of a man who missed his community so much that he returned only a few weeks after initially departing. After much embarrassment from people within the small community and realizing the importance of his pledge to defend his country and the well-being of his family and loved ones, he again packed his bags and left for what turned out to be a distinguished military career.
I believe the moral of my grandmother’s story is about commitment to your country and your loved ones. Without doubt, the courageous women who left their families and homes for the ones they loved, epitomizes the moral of her story and an important part of our Canadian history. Melynda Jarratt’s writings capture the essence of the many stories retold to her about why these women chose to follow love and begin a new chapter in their lives in Canada.
The Honourable T.J. Burke, Q.C.
Attorney General and Minister of Justice
Province of New Brunswick
Preface The Battle of Love by Melynda Jarratt
Basically we girls came out to Canada, by and large not knowing what to expect, the vast majority of us dug in, adapted, compromised, made homes for our husbands and families and became good contributing Canadian citizens.1 (Dorothy (Currie) Hyslop, Scottish War Bride, St Stephen, New Brunswick)
When Canada joined Britain in its declaration of war against Germany on 10 September 1939, the last thing on anybody’s mind was marriage.
But less than forty days after the First Canadian Infantry Division landed at Greenock, Scotland, on 17 December 1939, the first marriage between a British woman and a Canadian soldier took place at the Farnborough Church in Aldershot on 28 January 1940.2 That marriage, and the nearly 48,0003 which followed over the course of the next six years, formed one of the most unusual immigrant waves to hit Canada’s shores: all women, mostly British, and all from the same age group, the story of the Canadian War Brides of the Second World War is one worth telling.
Ninety-four per cent of Canadian War Brides were British, and the reasons are fairly obvious: the Canadians were the first to come to the defence of Britain after the declaration of war and they stayed there for nearly six years. And even though GI Brides received a lot more press, Canadian War Brides outnumbered their American counterparts by more than 10,000 and were the mothers of 7,000 more children by the time the war was over.4
Nearly a half-million Canadians served in Britain during the Second World War, the majority of them passing through the Victorian Hampshire town of Aldershot which became known as the Home of the Canadian Army. Canadians lived in the UK for so long they became part of the landscape. Stationed in military barracks and billeted with families throughout the country, it was only natural that they would meet local women, fall in love and marry – and that’s exactly what one in every ten Canadians did.
As the number of Canadians in Britain increased, so too did the weddings: in 1940 there were 1,222 marriages; the number more than doubled in 1941 when there were 3,011; in 1942 there were 4,160; and in 1943 they climbed again to 5,897. From January to June 1944 there were 3,927 marriages and another 2,273 from July to December.5
By December 1944 marriages were no longer exclusively to British women as the Canadians were marrying French, Belgian and Dutch women they were meeting on the Continent. But the vast majority – 44,886 – of the 47,783 marriages that took place before the last of the Canadians left for home, were to British War Brides.6
Back in Canada, the marriage boom certainly didn’t go unnoticed; as War Brides began to trickle into the country in 1942, 1943 and 1944, stories about them began to appear in the press and not all of it was kind.
It didn’t take long for someone to react. In January 1944 an unidentified British wife wrote a two-page article in Maclean’s, Canada’s national magazine. In it she talks about the reception she’s received since arriving in Canada three months earlier and recounts the warning she was given by her husband shortly before she left England:
‘After the last war,’ he said, ‘there was a certain amount of gossip about British war brides. Some of the Canadian boys married poor types of girls. Some fine British girls married no-good Canadians. As a result some of the marriages turned out disastrously and caused gossip. People talked about the marriages which failed. They appeared to forget the many British brides who came to Canada and proved splendid wives and mothers.’7
The writer, who goes by the pseudonym ‘One Of Them’, feels she always has to explain why she married a Canadian and defends her sister War Brides from one of the most stinging criticisms that these ‘Limeys’ are taking the ‘cream of Canada’s young men out of circulation.’
She also comments on the aloofness of Canadians whom she resents for giving her short shrift when she makes a mistake or says the wrong thing. ‘One Of Them’ feels Canadians just don’t seem to appreciate what life is like for the average British citizen, with the severe rationing, queues, bombing, and tragedy around every corner.
The Maclean’s article touched a nerve across Canada. An article which appeared in the Toronto Globe and Mail in April 1944 faces the issue head on and encourages Canadians to extend a warm welcome to British wives:
There actually seem to be people who feel that there is something sinister and unnatural in the circumstance that if you expose a normal Canadian youth to several million normal females of his own race for two or three years at