Frances McIlroy was born on June 16th, 1917, in Madoc Ontario. She is the eldest of one brother and one sister. She went to school in Madoc; later on she went to Kingston General Hospital to train as a nurse. From there she became an army nurse. Frances went overseas in June 1944, right as […]
Francess Halpenny hails from eastern Ontario, where she grew up in the 20s and 30s. The family relocated to the Toronto area early on, and it was there that the young Francess fell in love with books, as she made her way through the Great Depression and built upon her education, which would take her […]
Jack C. Thomas was born on June 4, 1923, in Blenheim, Ontario, where he grew up in a family of 7. Jack’s early life was tough and he quit school and started at construction and factory work. Well aware of the war in Europe Jack was eager to join, particularly the RCAF (Royal Canadian Air […]
George Rubin was born May 7, 1925 in Brooklyn, New York, and that is where he grew up during the Depression and early war years. He graduated from Erasmus Hall High School in 1943, and he recalls that most of the young men in his class had either enlisted or were drafted right as they […]
John Neu was born August 21, 1923. He grew up in a German-speaking region of Romania, where his family had deep roots. Conditions were difficult there in the post-Great War era though, and John’s parents made the decision to emigrate to Canada in 1928. They initially headed to the Prairies, but they ended up in […]
Irving Locker was born November 8, 1924 in St. Paul, Minnesota. His family moved to New Jersey when he was quite young, so that is where he grew up, the youngest in a large family. Irving’s father was a shoemaker, so he didn’t bring home much money, and Irving remembers that the family struggled to […]
Russ Freeburg was born March 4, 1923 in Galesburg, Illinois. He grew up in the railroad town against the backdrop of the Great Depression, graduating from high school in 1941. Just a few months later Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, bringing the US into the war. Russ remembers that he and others saw the clouds of […]
Jack Moran was born September 3, 1925 in Superior, Wisconsin. He served with the 347th Inf. Reg. K-Company; he enlisted in 1943 and was discharged in 1946. Jack recalls a great childhood with a mix of fishing, hunting and swimming; as was normal for any teenager of the time, he attended school and experienced the […]
Hal Urban was born July 16, 1924 in Chicago Heights, Illinois. He remembers growing up poor in the midst of the Great Depression, and with the attack on Pearl Harbor and the coming of the war, Hal and so many of the men of his generation enlisted. Training took place at Camp Callan near LaJolla, […]
Stan Deveau was born November 19, 1922 in Watrous, Saskatchewan, a small farming community. He grew up there during the difficult days of the Great Depression, when economics and the environment conspired to create the “Dust Bowl”, forcing the family to move to British Columbia in 1938. When the war came along, Stan’s brother decided […]
Anna Cheszes was born in Poland, likely in 1940; she is uncertain of her birthday given the circumstances of her early life, but based on her faked baptismal certificate she celebrates it on June 8. Based on information she has learned, Anna believes that she was born Pola Kaplan, and she was raised as Anna […]
Richard James Earl was born July 3, 1924 in Winnipeg. He was the youngest of six brothers and three sisters – in a family that covered a wide range of ages. His father was a tailor who made uniforms for Canadian National Railroad employees, particularly the porters, conductors and dining car staff. He had served […]
Douglas Stinson was born October 30, 1922 in Halifax, Nova Scotia. His father was a Great War veteran who served in the Canadian navy, and after the war he continued as a wireless operator, and Doug recalls that the family was often on the move during this time. Doug was the oldest of six, and […]
Henry Kolinek was born July 28, 1925 in Green, Texas, a small community near San Antonio. His father had been a WWI infantry veteran and during the Depression he ginned cotton and did some carpentry – anything to support the family. Henry attended a local 3-room school and for fun he went squirrel hunting with […]
George Ferguson was born July 19, 1924 in Stenhousemuir, Scotland; his family emigrated to Canada when he was just four years old, the oldest son. George’s father was a Great War veteran who tended the war horses; back home he also worked with fox hunt horses and as those class-based traditions started to come undone […]
John Preece was born October 19, 1926 in Toronto’s Queen-Bathurst neighbourhood. John’s early life was not easy, largely because of family circumstances. His mother had emigrated from Scotland, and – alone in Toronto – she fell into a relationship with a married man and turned to alcohol. John does not have many positive memories of […]
Irene Solnick was born August 22, 1937 in Przemyśl, Poland. Her name at birth was Ruth, but Irene was the Christian name she was given in wartime Poland – to help her to survive the Shoah. She was raised in a mixed Jewish family, where her grandfather and father were Orthodox, Yiddish-speaking successful merchants, while […]
Bill Snow was born September 13, 1922 in Bay Roberts, Newfoundland. He grew up in that small community alongside his five sisters. Bill recalls that his father was a fisherman – but that he did many other jobs in the off season. Bill went to school but left in Grade 8: work was available and […]
Kenneth Cooke was born August 8,1925 in East Kirkby, Nottinghamshire, a coal mining district. He indicated that he had a rough early life growing up: there was a general strike, and there was no income. He attended school at age 5 and completed his education at age 14, and then had to find employment. […]
Stephen Cosgrove was born June 5, 1926 in Liverpool, England. He was 13 when the war began, and he remembers the schools shutting down in the early days of the war: there were fears of a German attack, and authorities did not want a school to get hit. Stephen remembers classrooms set up in people’s […]
Raymond Corbett was born September 3, 1934 in Bass River, Nova Scotia. He grew up in that small community against the backdrop of the Second World War, where he attended school and church and did all the things that were normal in small town Canada at the time. Ray left school in Grade 10, and […]
Kurt Leuchter was born February 6, 1929 in Vienna, Austria. He grew up there in the 1930s and remembers well the dark days of the Anschluss, when the Nazis marched in. Restrictions began to set in, and then the real brutality was unleashed during Kristallnacht. Kurt recalls seeing the synagogue burned, and remembers his father […]
Edith Loeb was born December 31, 1927 in Bruchsal, Germany, not too far from the border with France. From her accounts and memories, Edith was living a good life; her father had a store, and she and her brother went to school and the family was doing well. As the 1930s and the Nazi ideology […]
John Foy was born October 12, 1925 in Rochester, New York. He grew up there against the backdrop of the Great Depression, in a large family of ten children where four of the brothers would serve during the war. In the 30s John went to school and did all the normal things for a teenager […]
Robert “Boots” Chouinard was born December 21, 1923 in Newburyport, Massachusetts. He was the youngest of 8 children. His father was employed in a paper mill and as a barber. Robert attended various schools, including Massanutten Military Academy in Woodstock, Virginia, where he played football on a scholarship. He said that he went from being […]
Bill Balabanow was born February 17, 1926 in the little town of Blue Ridge Summit in southern Pennsylvania, though the family moved to Lancaster in 1931, and that is where he spent most of his childhood. Bill’s parents divorced when he was an infant, so his parental and family memories come mainly from his mother’s […]
George Pouder was born January 18, 1923 in New York City. He grew up in the Bronx during the difficult times of the Great Depression, a period that impacted his family and the neighborhood. George recalls that the quality of his schooling varied, but that he took full advantage of the city, exploring it with […]
Mervyn Kersh was born December 20, 1924 in South London. He grew up with two older siblings in a middle class Jewish family in the neighbourhood of Brixton; he experienced significant anti-Semitism at school, until his parents moved him to a Jewish school. They also enrolled him in the Jewish Lads’ Brigade, and Mervyn too […]
Gerry O’Leary was born December 3, 1924 in Tottenham, Ontario. He grew up on a farm there, one of ten children, doing chores such as milking the cows and spreading manure. When the time for war came, both Gerry and his older brother joined up, and they were on their way overseas in 1944. Gerry […]
Edwin Cottrell was born January 17, 1922 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. His parents moved to Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania the next year though, and that is where he grew up. Edwin remembers a good childhood – and one where he played all kinds of sports. His father – a Great War veteran – worked at the […]