Helen Gauthier (nee Hartnell) was born November 23, 1926 in London, England, in the Chiswick neighbourhood in the city’s west end, where she grew up with five sisters. When the war came, Helen was quite young, but she decided to join up when she was 18, and she settled on the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS). Women in the ATS did the many jobs that had been held by men, taking up the slack while the men were off at war. Helen recalls loading the many trucks that made up the convoys taking food and supplies around England during the war. During her down time she enjoyed ballroom dancing, and it was at one of these dances where she met her future husband, who happened to be a Canadian soldier stationed in England. He proposed at the end of the war, and she returned to Canada with him as a war bride, and they made their home and family together in Montreal. Helen Gauthier was interviewed by Scott Masters at her home in Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, Quebec in March 2026.
