Tim Kiniry was born November 15, 1921 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and that’s where he spent his first two years, though he really grew up in New Jersey. Tim had four sisters and a younger brother, and they all grew up during the Depression, attending grammar school – Tim’s education ended at the 8th grade. During […]
George Morasch was born May 24, 1923 in Calgary, Alberta. He was 16 when the war broke out, and he watched many of friends sign up for the fight. George tried to do so too, but the recruiter put him off at first, so he went back when he was 19. Basic training at Camrose, […]
Don Carter was born January 1, 1925 in Wellsville, New York. Don and his siblings grew up in nearby Hornell, where his dad was a contractor and his mother was a telephone switchboard operator. Don grew up against the backdrop of the Great Depression; he remembered that his father’s contracts were suspended and times were […]
Alfred Cormier was born February 25, 1925 in Boston, Massachusetts. The family had Canadian roots, and when Alfred’s father’s health deteriorated, they moved to New Brunswick when Alfred was 7. Alfred grew up there in the small community of Adamsville. As he recalls he left school when he was 13 – so that he could […]
Russell Sattazahn was born April 17, 1926 in Rexmont, Pennsylvania, though his parents relocated soon after, and Russell ended up living in a number of rural communities in the southeastern portion of the state. He grew up on a small farm alongside his four siblings, navigating the realities of the Great Depression. He attended high […]
Harold McLean was born September 11, 1925 in Toronto, Ontario. He grew up in the city’s Mount Pleasant area, attending Northern Collegiate. His father worked for the Otis Elevator Company, so the family was able to make ends meet during the hard days of the Depression. Harold was in Grade 9 when the war began; […]
John Honsberger was born February 6, 1923 in Toronto, Ontario. He grew up in different neighbourhoods in the city and he attended the University of Toronto Schools – and that is where he was when the war broke out. His father encouraged him to graduate before enlisting – and even then he wanted his son […]
Tony Mastromatteo was born May 15, 1921 in Toronto, where he grew up on Wellington St. in a family of 12 children. Tony’s parents had emigrated from Italy, looking for better opportunities, but the fact that Italy was in the war didn’t bother Tony: he said he was Canadian and he had no doubts about […]
Jacob (Jake) Ruser was born December 27, 2025 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of a Great War veteran. His parents moved to the nearby town of Conshohocken when he was young, and that is where he and his sister grew up, all against the backdrop of the Great Depression. Like many kids, Jake did not […]
Antoine Labranche is from Dunham, Quebec, in the Eastern Townships. He is in the Canadian Air Force, and is a currently serving member of the CAF, which he joined in 2006. After going through the various levels of pilot and survival training, Major Labranche was sent on his first deployment as part of Operation Impact, 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 […]
Dave Peters was born in St. Catharines, Ontario. He grew up in a farming community not far from there, and he learned the value of hard work, often joining his father in his job at the CNR. His mother grew up in wartime Belgium, and she recounted many of her stories to Dave when he […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
John Appel was born August 21, 1937 in what were then the Dutch East Indies, where his parents supervised a sugar plantation. When the Japanese invaded and occupied the area in the Second World War, John and his family were held in an internment camp, living in very difficult conditions. John’s father was taken as […]
Philip Daniel was born July 24, 1925 in Toronto. He grew up on a farm in the Leaside neighbourhood, where his father – a Great War veteran – delivered dairy goods. Philip’s father was part of the Canadian Engineers in the First World War, working with horses and keeping the supplies moving; his mother was […]
Alfred Grubb was born October 25, 1921 on a farm near Hanover, Ontario. Alfred’s father had been a farmer, but when Alfred was three years old the family relocated to nearby Teeswater, where his father took a job at the local creamery. Alfred attended school up to Grade 8, but he was not fond of […]
Marie Doduck was born May 10, 1935 in Brussels, Belgium. She was a young child when the war began, but given the intensity of her experiences, she remembers those early days well. She grew up in a large Jewish family in Brussels, one that had a long history in Poland. When the war came the […]
Stuart Johns was born February 11, 1925 in Walkerville, Ontario. He grew up in and around Windsor, against the backdrop of the Great Depression. Stuart recalls his family being affected by that calamity – but also that they were not living in poverty. His father, a veteran of the Great War, worked at the nearby […]
Betty Damboise was born July 3, 1933 in Schoenecke, Germany. She grew up in the Schnee Eifel region, near the Luxembourg-Belgium border. Betty’s father worked in the metal trades, and he was classified as an essential worker because of his connections to the local farming community. Betty started school in 1939 in her village, and […]
Danny Heller was born June 16, 1925 in Maple Creek, Saskatchewan. He grew up on a farm, working hard and helping out the family during the Great Depression. Danny also attended the local school, and made the most of life in a small town. Danny’s parents were of German descent and had emigrated from the […]
Harry Forbes was born April 11, 1918 in Maple Creek, Saskatchewan. Harry grew up on a farm, the oldest of 11 children. He remembers the 1920s as being a dry decade where farming became increasingly difficult, topped off by the crash and Great Depression. Harry in fact had to quit school when he was 15 […]
Hugh Patterson was born December 30, 1921 in Seneca Township, just outside Caledonia, Ontario. He grew up on a farm: there was plenty of food as Hugh remembers, but money was tight in the days of the Great Depression. Hugh worked on the farm when he was young, but as he put it “milking those […]
Ben Burston was born November 29, 1924 in Kielce, Poland. Ben’s parents made the decision to emigrate to Canada – to escape anti-Semitism and to find better economic opportunities. They settled in downtown Toronto, in the Kensington Market neighbourhood. Ben’s mother died when he was quite young, so he was raised by his father in […]
Art Boon was born November 12, 1924 in Peterborough, England, emigrating to Canada when he was a baby. Art’s father had come to Canada for the first time in 1912, but with the outbreak of the Great War Art’s father and uncle returned to Europe to fight in that war. Art grew up in Stratford, […]
Douglas Fitzsimmons was born July 22, 1924 in Toronto. He grew up in a large family in the city’s east end, in the Gerrard and Woodbine neighbourhood and attended the local Catholic school. Doug’s father was a Great War veteran who went on to a successful career as a salesman, so the family was sheltered […]