London Free Press
September 14, 2006
War brides had special battles to fight and win
By Ian Gillespie, Free Press Columist igillespie@lfpress.com
They left everything behind to start a new life in a strange land with men they hardly knew.
City officials yesterday paid tribute to about 100 of these local war brides who made their own special sacrifices after the Second World War.
They were young women from Britain -- and to a lesser extent from the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Italy and other nations -- who amid the tumult of war, married Canadian soldiers, sailors and flyers and then followed their husbands here.
In all, about 48,000 women with about 22,000 children made their way to Canada between 1942 and 1948.
"Oh, it was quite something," said war bride Pat Doohan, who attended yesterday's event.
That's one way to put it.
"We have women of courage in this room," London Mayor Anne Marie DeCicco-Best said.
That's a better way.
The mayor spoke at the city hall reception that marked, for most of the women, the 60th anniversary of their arrival in Canada. The gathering also coincided with the province's declaration of 2006 as the Year of the War Bride.
"This was a major event in the history of immigration to Canada," organizer Dolores Hatch said.
"There's a lot of heartache involved here."
That's true. Although many war brides embarked on rich and satisfying lives, in many cases their new circumstances proved difficult.
First, many of these women -- most of whom are now in their 80s -- fell in love and married quickly.
These were relationships spawned in an atmosphere of urgency, when the daily parade of death compelled many to find happiness today -- because tomorrow might not come.
The brides were young -- many still in their teens -- and inexperienced. Some arrived in Canada only to discover they had been abandoned by their new husbands.
"Some had horrible experiences with in-laws and family members who shunned them," Hatch said. "And a lot of the fellows told, well, maybe you'd call them white lies, about their prospects back in Canada."
Although her 59-year marriage to William Doohan was long and loving (he died three years ago), Doohan admitted her first years in Canada were anything but easy.
"You leave your family, you leave your country, you leave your name, you leave your work, you leave everything and get sort of plopped into nowhere," she said. "You wouldn't have it any other way, but it was very, very hard."
Although most war brides travelled to Canada by ship, Doohan and six other pregnant war brides were flown in January 1946 from Prestwick, Scotland, to Nova Scotia (she believes they landed in Sydney) on a converted Lancaster bomber that suffered an engine failure en route.
"That was no problem," she recalled. "We were used to seeing bombers limping in on one engine."
After seeing snow for the first time, the then-22-year-old Doohan and her trunk of belongings were bundled onto a train in Montreal and sent to Southwestern Ontario. Her husband, she recalled, tried frantically to find her at a stopover in Toronto.
"He went flying around (the station) and he smacked into a glass door and nearly knocked himself out," she recalled. "He just managed to get the train. I don't know what I would've done otherwise."
But Canada wasn't the only thing that proved unfamiliar.
"I didn't know my husband very well," Doohan said. "He was the type that was full of conversation at first. And then after three days, well, that was the end of that. I found him to be a very quiet man."
Although her husband had bought a house on Tecumseh Avenue, there was little in it except a bed and a stove. The newlyweds even borrowed cutlery.
"And you know, having four children in six years is a bit much," Doohan said. "You don't really get to know many people when you're so busy. And money was short."
Doohan said some Canadian women were less-than-friendly -- at least one told her the war brides "had taken some of our best boys."
But these days, Doohan is philosophical about those hardships.
"It was a bit of everything, I suppose. It was certainly an education."
And lessons we'd all do well to learn.
