In Part One of Rural Manitoba Memories, you learned that my grandpa Willetts planted a seed in Eriksdale, Manitoba's rocky soil, that grew the tree that eventually produced me. This Sunday...?
Among my family's legacy is the story of the toll waiting takes on women during the time of war.
Rural Manitoba Memories
Aunty Kay: My mother was born in Manchester, England and came to Canada to stay with her sister-in-law and her three young nephews while my uncle Tom was working in Winnipeg.
Grandma: Mrs. Everette and I (I was twelve years younger than she) often talked about writing a book, in our younger days. We both had a good sense of humour, she used to say, “We’ll tell them what it is really like, living up here, how I broke my best Sunday-go-to-meeting parasol over the oxen’s back when he decided to walk into a mud hole to rest and relax on the way home from town.”
Aunty Kay: Uncle Tom’s homestead was next to my dad’s. My mom and dad were married the following year.
Leanne: My grandparents married on December 18, 1913. Seven months later—on July 28, 1914—the First World War was declared.
Grandma: Tom went overseas in 1914 and within nine months he was dead. Jim went overseas in 1916.
Leanne: As a newlywed, and while grieving her brother, Grandma had to watch her newly-wedded husband march off to war. I can’t even imagine how much courage, strength and faith she must have possessed. How many times did she twist the Mizpah ring on her finger and offer a silent prayer?
Mizpah Prayer
May the Lord watch between me and three while we are parted, one from another.
Grandpa was a pacifist. He requested to serve as a stretcher-bearer. The army, in its wisdom, made him a gunner.
Aunty Kay: Daddy served overseas at Arras, Lens and Passchendaele with the 16th Canadian Scottish under Colonel Peck.
Leanne: TheCanadian Encyclopedia describes Lens as ‘the first major action fought by the Canadian Corps under a Canadian commander.’
Colonel Cyrus Wesley Peck was awarded the Victoria Cross and the Distinguished Service Order for acts of bravery.
A Tale From The First World War
A. J. Willetts [my dad]
published in Memory Opens the Door, 1974
One day after the folks had moved to BC, they were back here visiting and Dad went with me to the train to pick up the mail for the Post Office.
One of the crew stepped off the train and Dad said, "Well if it isn't Wilfred Lamb."
They shook hands and, pleased to meet each other, immediately began talking. As they chatted Dad told Mr. Lamb about a notice he had found on the wall of a bombed-out building in France, during the First World War. The notice advertised a boxing match, to be held in Eriksdale, between Wilfred Lamb, Peter Whittall and others.
Thinking the paper would be of interest to Mr. Lamb, Dad arranged to meet him on the station next morning when the train went south, to give it to him. Then he went on to tell me how he had come by the notice.
"I was with the 16th Canadian, and they were a pretty tough regiment. It didn't matter how tired we were, we always marched back from the lines. But, there came a day at Passchendaele, when the regiment was in bad shape, we were told to make our way back as best we could. I was so weary I just had to sit down to rest.
"While I rested, my pack of ammunition slipped off unnoticed and I had gone quite a distance before I realized what had happened. Without protection, I would not get far, so I picked up the rifle and ammunition of the first dead German soldier I came across and continued to make my way back. I met one of our officers and hurried to explain the lost equipment and my reluctance to be travelling in that area without some means of protection.
" 'Good thinking, soldier, carry on,' was his comment.
"When I came across the bombed-out shell of a building, I knew it was time to rest awhile, for I was incredibly tired. I probably dozed a bit, then as I looked around in the dim light I could see 'ERIKSDALE' in huge letters on the wall opposite my resting place. That shook my confidence considerably. It just could not be, not here in France. But, it was there. Each time I looked up I could see it. Clearly, I had become deranged, 'looped' as some of the fellows called it. I hurried away from that spot, yet, that word 'ERIKSDALE' on that wall haunted me. Had I been seeing things, or was it real?
Next day I went back to that place. It was there. On a great big notice! A notice telling of a boxing match, to be held in far away Eriksdale, Manitoba. My home town! I took it down and sent it home and that is the paper I shall give to Wilfred Lamb, tomorrow."
How did the notice get on a wall in France? Who knows? I have pondered that question many times.
Probably, someone from 'home' had sent it to their soldier at the front. He, for want of something better to do, had hung it there—and perhaps for a few moments forgot the Hell of War as he gazed at an ordinary notice from home—and savored in dreams, the day when he would be 'going home'.
It is quite a few years since that day. Wilfred Lamb passed away not long after and I have often thought I should have had a copy made of that notice, but—one is inclined to put off things not of immediate concern. Now, it is too late.
I'm blessed to come from a family of writers. People who wrote for fun and to build community. Their writing built this memoir.
