Sept 10, 1939
My dad was cutting brush along a road allowance on the Saskatchewan prairies, when a neighbour drove by in his old farm truck, telling my dad the news. “Canada declared war!” he shouted from the window. “I’m going to Regina to join up.” Dad swung his scythe over his shoulder and jumped into the seat beside him.
“Take me with you. I’m joining up, too.”
Meanwhile, my mum was at home with their two little girls, probably canning fruit or digging potatoes. Mum had no way of knowing why Dad didn’t come home for supper. They had no phone, even if he’d had a spare nickel to call from a pay phone. But when he returned late that night to his wife, who was pacing the house and “worried sick,” he told her the news, and she broke down.
“What about us?” she sobbed. “What are we going to do when they send you overseas?”
Holding her close, he said, “It’ll be okay. They send our paycheques to our wives. You’ll be taken care of.”
“Not that!” she cried. “I mean what about us if you get killed? You didn’t have to do this. We need you.”
“Don’t worry, Doll. Their bullets won’t get me. Look, I’m so skinny, if I stand sideways, I disappear. Those bullets will whizz right past me.”
Soon Dad was in training camp near Saskatoon and Mum had moved there with my two sisters to be near him. She could not believe their good fortune when a letter arrived in the mail with the first paycheque. Never before had they seen this much money. She ran to the camp to show Dad the cheque and he laughed at her. “That’s just for the first week, Doll! The next cheque will be twice that!”
Mum’s next letter to her own mother began, “Ma. You’ll never believe this.”
The “Dirty Thirties” were over for my parents. Gone were the days of finding odd jobs, of making over old clothes, of adding water to the soup to make it go farther. The War was a horrible thing, everyone would agree, but for this young couple it began as a chance to finally have some of the things we take for granted. Those first weeks were such a time of hope and joy. They had no idea what misery lay ahead.
Amber Harvey
August 27, 2020