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 of the Depression. She left home when she was 16, and when the war came she decided to join the RCAF Women’s Division (WD), where she became a photographer. It was her job to chronicle life on the BCATP bases, including taking photographs of the many accidents that occurred. Near the end of the war Josephine met her future husband, so with demobilization she left the RCAF and became a homemaker, raising her family and pursuing her dream of flying in postwar Canada. Josephine Woods was interviewed by Scott Masters, Zach Dunn, and Josephine’s daughter Liz at the Sunnybrook Veterans’ Wing in December 2025.
