Burdett Sisler was born April 14, 1915 in Akron, Ohio. His father worked for the Goodyear Rubber Company, and early in the century he was tasked with finding a location for a factory in Canada, and the family ended up settling in New Toronto (present-day Etobicoke). That is where Burd and his siblings grew up, […]
Thane Startzell is from San Antonio, Texas and is a colonel in the present day U.S. Army. He grew up in a military family, and he decided to pursue that goal in his own right, choosing to attend West Point. He was there when 9/11 happened, recognizing right away that it was a moment that […]
Art McGann was born June 18, 1924 in Connellsville, Pennsylvania. He grew up in a family of 12 children – and 5 of the brothers were in uniform. Art grew up during the Depression and he remembers that the family had to “make do”. Pearl Harbor would change the fortunes of Art’s generation: he graduated […]
Larry Rafferty was born May 30, 1932 in Blackpool, England, where he grew up against the backdrop of World War Two. Larry has many engaging memories of the time, from the Blitz to the rations and Blackpool FC! Larry grew up in Blackpool and Manchester, returning to the latter after the bombings had subsided. His […]
James “Jim” Devlin was born February 13, 1938 in Ireland. He grew up in Ulster, and he recalls the bigotry and hatred of those times: he was Catholic in a predominantly Protestant area. He came to Canada in 1954, eager to get away from those tensions and the economic circumstances of his homeland. Jim’s parents […]
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 […]
Gordon Schottlander was born January 10, 1925 in London, England. He was the son of a Great War veteran; Gordon was an only child, and he grew up in good circumstances, attending boarding school in Brighton – his father was self-employed in the Great Depression years. Gordon’s father also had the foresight to move the […]
Len Van Roon was born December 1, 1921 in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Len was an only child, and his father died when Len was only 10. Len attended a local school, and he was one of a few who graduated from high school at a time when most students only went to the 8th grade. Len […]
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 […]
Christopher – or Kit – Booth was born September 27, 1929 in Plattsburgh, N.Y. He grew up in upstate New York against the backdrop of the Great Depression and World War Two, where his memories of the attack on Pearl Harbor are vivid. Kit comes from a family with a military tradition; both his father […]
Una Golding (nee Sinclair) was born September 27, 1926 in Fairford, Manitoba. She grew up in that small farming community, where she was raised by her mother and grandfather. Una recalls going to a one room schoolhouse in her small town; to go to high school she would have had to go to Winnipeg, which […]
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 […]
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 […]
Mryl Jean Hughes was born January 1, 1923 in Hibbing, Minnesota. She grew up there against the backdrop of the Great Depression, though Mryl does not remember feeling a sense of deprivation in the Arrowhead region of Minnesota. After high school Myrl was studying to be a med tech, but with the coming of the […]
Alice Nowaczyk was born November 7, 1924 in Bodfari in north Wales, not too far from Wrexham. Her father was a Great War veteran who also saw service in World War Two; he had re-enlisted in the reserves prior to WW2, and when that conflict began he found himself at Dunkirk, where he was wounded […]
Helmut Lemke was born February 3, 1926 in a village in East Prussia. His father was a Great War veteran who had served as a medic on the eastern front, and he never recovered from the shellshock and horrors of that war, taking his life when Helmut was just 13. Helmut grew up alongside his […]
Justin Roy was born August 19, 1924; he grew up in M’Chigeeng First Nation, an Ojibwe band government in the Manitoulin District of Ontario. He attended the Jesuit-run St. Peter Claver residential school but left at age 13 to find his own way in the world after his father passed away. He first worked at […]
Helene Le Scelleur was born November 22, 1972, and she grew up in Greenfield Park, on the South Shore of Montreal. On the second day of her last year in high school – when she was 17 – a recruiter showed an infantry regiment presentation. She stated that “she wanted to be part of something […]
Paul Vaillancourt was born October 21, 1938, in Dill Township, just outside of Subbury, Ontario. Paul’s father worked for the railroad until he was injured on the job, which put the family in difficult financial circumstances. Paul’s mother was left alone with their seven children as he underwent multiple surgeries, and the stress of that […]
Gordon Finnie was born March 2, 1931 in Toronto, where he grew up in the Parkdale neighbourhood. Gord grew up during the tough times of the Great Depression and the Second World War, and he and his brothers delivered newspapers to help the family out. His parents worked at the Palace Theatre on the Danforth. […]
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 […]
Kathryn McGill was born July 21, 1925 in Glasgow, Scotland. She grew up there in the 1930s, and by her account she had a good life, going to school, performing acrobatics and enjoying the odd day at the zoo. Her father was a carpenter who had a disability that kept him out of the Great […]
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 […]
John Cross was born June 21, 1925 in London, England. His father was a Great War veteran who had served with the Royal Horse Artillery and his mother was a gardener. He grew up in London against the backdrop of the Great Depression and emerging military tensions of the 1930s. John in fact recalls the […]
Ed Marshall was born December 18, 1923 in Toronto, Ontario, where he grew up in the city’s east end. His father and grandfather were veterans of the Great War, and both had served as bakers in the Canadian Expeditionary Force. Ed’s early life was set against the backdrop of the Great Depression, so while he […]
Augusta Bansbach was born October 9, 1921 in the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia. She grew up in a small rural community there, living on a farm with her parents and grandparents, alongside her Czech and German neighbours. Educational opportunities were limited for girls at that time, so Augusta’s schooling was complete after 8th grade, and […]
Art Cameron was born September 29, 1939 in St. Peter’s Bay, P.E.I. He grew up there against the backdrop of the Second World War, living on a mixed farm in Head of Hillsborough with his numerous siblings and attending the College at Prince of Wales in Charlottetown. He remembers the 1950s as a period of […]
Lois Brown (nee Wall) was born August 26, 1924 in Princetown, P.E.I. She grew up in that rural community, one of 10 children of Everett and Ella Wall. She grew up on a farm and remembers doing lots of chores in her early years. She attended the Fanning School in Malpeque up to Grade 8, […]