Jean Garrity was born January 27, 1923 in Jamestown, Newfoundland. Her father was a bookkeeper for a logging company and her mother was a teacher who ran the post office out of the family home in that small fishing village. Jean grew up alongside her six siblings during the Great Depression, which she remembers were […]
Les Schrenk was born November 16, 1923 in Long Prairie, Minnesota. He grew up on a small dairy farm, milking cows, shoveling manure, and bailing hay among other farm chores. He attended a one room schoolhouse and graduated from high school. He had an older sister; his older brother served on a B-24 in the […]
George Couture was born November 25, 1924 in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. His father was a Great War veteran from Selkirk, Manitoba who headed south when work was tough to find after he returned to Canada from his overseas service. They stayed there for four years before returning to Canada, where the family confronted the realities of […]
Josephine Woods was born September 25, 1923 in Königsberg, East Prussia. Her family left the area about the time Hitler was coming to power and Germany was in economic chaos, and they chose to come to Canada, settling in Avonlea, Saskatchewan. Her father had a farm there, and Josephine grew up there during the decade […]
John Henry Thomas – Jack – was born September 14, 1923 in Sydney, Australia. He grew up there during the difficult days of the Great Depression, attending school and playing sports. He recalls that the war came to Australia on September 4, 1939, and that from the beginning he and his friends were aware of […]
Tom Kirk was born November 10, 1928 in Richmond, Virginia. He grew up an avid musician, and by the end of high school he was playing gigs 3-4 nights a week – time he should have been studying according to his father. So the decision was made to send him to the Virginia Military Institute […]
Michele Melfe was born March 1, 1922 in Caltanissetta, Sicily. He grew up in a big family in this country town, where he bicycled and played soccer and attended school up to 3rd grade. Benito Mussolini was dictator of Italy, and Michele was a member of a youth organization. At the time though, the war […]
Eva Wiener was born July 18, 1938 in Berlin, Germany. Her parents were originally from Poland, and their families fled during the pogroms at the turn of the century, settling in Berlin – at first a very welcoming city. That had changed by the time her parents met though, and with Hitler’s accession to power […]
Elizabeth Samson was born June 20, 1922 in Coleman, Alberta. Her maternal grandparents were indigenous: they were non-registered Cree First Nations. Elizabeth’s father was of German descent, an immigrant from the U.S. She grew up in a large family with five siblings; it was a mining area where the workers came from everywhere – a […]
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; […]
James “Joe” Kennedy was born July 9, 1925 in Newry, in County Down, Northern Ireland. He grew up there in a Catholic family with 7 children, attending school until age 14 and coping with the Great Depression and then the war. Several family members were involved in the war too, and Joe remembers an uncle […]
William (Bill) Dibble was born October 7, 1921 in Buffalo, New York. His father was a veteran of the Great War who was wounded several times and who was gassed – it disabled him significantly and he died young. An only child, Bill grew up against the backdrop of the Great Depression and attended Boys’ […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Paul Hale was born June 15, 1954 in Oldham, England. His parents moved to Canada when he was quite young, so Paul was raised in northern Ontario, ending up in the Timmins area. There he decided to join the Canadian Forces after serving in the reserves, and while in university he chose the officer path. […]
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. […]
Asta Butt was born June 12, 1930 in a small village not too far from Bremen, Germany. Her father had a business transporting goods on the rivers of northern Germany, and her grandfather – a Great War veteran – did the same. Asta went to school , and has largely positive memories from her early […]
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 […]
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 […]
Mary Owen (nee Adamson) was born June 2, 1926 in Creighton Mine, Ontario, a small mining town near Sudbury. Her father , a veteran of the Great War, was a gold prospector in those early days, and the family lived in a number of small towns across Ontario’s north at that time. Eventually they settled […]
Kevin Junor was born April 8, 1963 in England to Jamaican parents who had emigrated there a few years earlier. The family later moved to Canada and Kevin grew up in the Bellamy-Lawrence neighbourhood of Scarborough, in Toronto’s east end. A Canadian Forces recruiting officer visited Kevin’s high school when he was 17, and Kevin […]
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. […]
Bob Fischer was born July 14, 1926 in West Allis, Wisconsin. He grew up in that industrial town in a family with five siblings including a twin brother, and he attended Catholic school – all while the Great Depression was unfolding. Bob does remember good times from that decade, but he also remembers working – […]
Henry Beissel was born April 12, 1929 in Germany. It was a period where Germany was still struggling to recover from the punitive terms of the Treaty of Versailles, which were at the time of Henry’s birth coupled with the impacts of the Great Depression. Henry grew up in Nippes, near Cologne; both parents were […]
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 […]
Doug Hogg was born March 29, 1925 in London, Ontario. He grew up in that city, mostly against the backdrop of the Great Depression. He remembers that his father worked several jobs to support the family, and that his grandmother was able to contribute as she had a pension, having lost two sons in the […]
Clyde Cassidy was born January 31, 1925 in Barton, Vermont, not too far from where he lives today. He grew up against the backdrop of the Depression, but as his father had steady work with the railroad conditions were not too bad for the family. Clyde was in high school when the attack on Pearl […]
Hugh McGeach was born May 8, 1921 in London, Ontario. He grew up on a farm, and later in the city of London, against the backdrop of the Great Depression. Hugh’s father was a Great War veteran whose health had deteriorated, necessitating the move. Lloyd graduated from a technical high school and became an automotive […]
Art Morrow was born May 5, 1923 in Butler, Pennsylvania. He and his younger brother Jack (whose story can also be found in the Crestwood OHP) grew up there against the backdrop of the Great Depression and the emerging war. Art graduated high school, and as he was a strong student he went to Penn […]