Every year, as the warm summer fades away and the splendour of autumn colours is upon us, my thoughts turn to a specific memory from my childhood. It is almost like clockwork and never fails.
Mom, Claire and Paul
circa 1944
When I was about four or five years old, my mom taught me a song that is forever etched in my memory.
When the trees take on their beautiful fall colours, and when gentle breezes send brightly coloured leaves of red and gold gently spiralling to the ground, forming, colourful carpets, I am reminded of a song my Mother taught me more than eighty years ago. To this day, I still sing “Come Little Leaves said the wind one day,” when driving along, enjoying the fall season and all its many vibrant colours. This brings back many fond memories of the bygone era.
Children’s Song
“Come, little leaves,” Said the wind one day, “Come over the meadows With me, and play; Put on your dresses Of red and gold; Summer is gone, And the days grow cold.”
Soon as the leaves Heard the wind’s loud call, Down they came fluttering, One and all; Over the meadows They danced and flew, Singing the soft Little songs they knew.
Dancing and flying The little leaves went; Winter had called them And they were content- Soon fast asleep In their earthy beds, The snow laid a soft mantle Over their heads.
“Come Little Leaves” was written by the American poet George Cooper (1838–1927), with music by Thomas J. Crawford. “Come Little Leaves” was written by the American poet George Cooper (1838–1927), with music by Thomas J. Crawford.
As I approach my 80th birthday, I begin to think about the year I was born. What a year that was, a year of major global transitions and the historical year of my birth. I was fortunate to be born in November of that year, when most hostilities had ceased in the world and my home town.
However, the hardships in Britain and Europe were just beginning. Now, we had to think about rebuilding our shattered lands.
1945. Plymouth, Devon, England, after a Blitz Raid
I have an interest in the ‘Home Front’ events that occurred in Britain during the Second World War, rather than military stories. However, military stories cannot be ignored as 1945 was quite the momentous year in the military and home fronts. Here is a timeline of key events both at home and abroad that occurred in 1945.
January:
World War 2 is in its final phase, even though Germany is in retreat. The British military pressed onward in Germany and Burma. The Battle of the Bulge ended a major German offensive on the Western Front.
It was believed that Plymouth was being singled out for particularly ferocious attacks because it was home to Her Majesty’s Naval Base, Devonport, which was the largest Navy base in Western Europe and the Royal Navy’s repair and refuelling facility. The dockyard was staffed by women during the war, doing what was normally considered to be men’s work, as all the men were away fighting.
On the home front, Britain was impacted by V-2 rocket attacks.
Rationing, especially items like dried and canned fruit, was scarce. The Ministry of Food encouraged households to reduce waste and get creative with recipes. I still practice creating recipes and reducing waste to this day.This story is my 1950 Christmas with rations. Rationing in England lasted until I was 11.
Allied bombers begin a major raid on the city of Dresden. Key events in February included the Yalta Conference between the Allied leaders, the beginning of the Battle of Iwo Jima and the final stages of the war in Europe.
The Soviets captured Budapest, Hungary, and also encircled Breslau, Germany (now the modern-day city of Wroclaw, Poland) as Allied forces pushed toward the Rhine in the west.
March:
The 10th British and Allied forces successfully crossed the Rhine, the first time a foreign army had crossed the Rhine since the Napoleonic era.
British forces pushed deeper into Germany with only scattered resistance.
On the 27th and 29th, the final V1 flying bomb fell on Britain.
Remarkable photo of a German V1 fully autonomous early cruise missile hitting the London area in 1945.
April:
1st The Battle of Okinawa continued for 82 days, resulting in heavy casualties for both American and Japanese forces. Japan launched ‘Kamikaze’ attacks against Allied naval forces.
Dr Fritz Klein, an SS doctor, among some of his victims, Belsen, 24 April 1945
Numerous Nazi concentration camps are liberated, revealing the full extent of the Holocaust to the world.
4thOhrdruf concentration camp, liberated by U.S. Forces.
11th American troops discovered the Buchenwald concentration camp
15th Liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, by the British, who found thousands of ill prisoners and corpses.
29thDachau camp was liberated by U.S. Forces.
Also on the 29th, Adolf Hitler married Eva Braun in the underground bunker.
30th Adolf Hitler commits suicide, shooting himself at the age of 56 years old, whilst Eva Braun takes a poison pill.
German forces, the last fighting force on the Western Front, surrendered en masse.
May:
7th Germany signs an unconditional surrender,
8th VE Day – victory in Europe – Day
On May 7, 1945, Gen. Alfred Jodl signed the surrender of all German forces in Rheims, France. He is flanked by Wilhelm Oxenius (left) of the Luftwaffe and Hans-Georg von Friedeburg, representing Germany’s navy. | AP Photo
23rd Heinrich Himmler commits suicide while in British custody in Lüneburg, Germany.
June:
15th Wartime blackouts ended, and streetlights were turned back on.
The wartime coalition government, led by Prime Minister Winston Churchill, was dissolved, and a general election was held shortly after.
July:
The general election was scheduled to take place on the 5th of July, 1945, the first general election since 1935. However, the results were not announced until the 26th of July, 1945, to allow time for overseas military personnel’s votes to be counted. The Labour Party, led by Clement Attlee, won a landslide victory in the July 1945 election.
August:
The Family Allowances Act was passed to provide financial support to mothers.
15th was Victory over Japan – VJ – day. Celebrating Japan’s surrender after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the official end to over six years of global warfare
2nd Japan formally surrenders. Now, our country was focused on the return of troops, the beginning of domestic reconstruction and the promises of independence for its colonies.
September:
15th Parades were held in Britain to mark the fifth anniversary of the Royal Air Force’s victory..
16th Hong Kong was reclaimed, ending the four-year Japanese occupation.
The 17th Belsen Trial began for war crimes in Lüneburg, Germany, presided over by a British military court.
18th The Independence of India would be granted “at the earliest possible date”, was announced by Prime Minister Clement Attlee on a worldwide broadcast.
October:
Britain was now fully engaged in the complex aftermath of the Second World War, with the new Labour government pursuing major domestic reforms and the British Army dealing with global instability and the return of war prisoners.
4th An unofficial dock strike began in Britain.
7th The ocean liner SS Corfu docked at Southampton, carrying the first 1,500 prisoners of war to return from Japanese camps in the Far East.Also on the 7th, Rudolf Hess was transferred from Britain to Nuremberg, Germany, to face trial.
The 20th and the 5th Pan-African Congress were held in Manchester, where delegates from across Africa and the diaspora discussed and called for independence from colonial rule, a significant moment in the history of decolonisation.
This month was a period of substantial change as the nation grappled with domestic reconstruction, a new political direction and the challenges of managing a post-war empire and a new global order.
At the end of October, in Palestine, the Jewish Resistance Movement launched the ‘Night of Trains’, a coordinated attack on the British railway network, marking a rise in armed opposition to British authority.
November:
On the 20th, I was born at the Alexandra Maternity Home, below.
At the time, there was no National Health Service (NHS), so no free medical care. I must have been an expensive baby!
The Alex, as it was often called, admitted maternity patients for a period of not less than a fortnight. Fees were charged from 15 shillings (75P) to 42 shillings (£2.20P) per week.. These fees included nursing, food, laundry and all clothing and if necessary, the doctor’s fees. I have no idea of my weight, size or time of birth. Such things were not, unfortunately, recorded.
December:
The government announced its plan for a National Health Service (NHS) to provide free medical care.
1st British military police in occupied Germany arrested 76 Nazi industrialists.
9th, the United States granted Britain a low-interest reconstruction loan of approximately $4.4 billion (US). An additional Canadian loan was for $1.9 billion, scheduled to run for 50 years.
The final payments made in 2006, which settled the debt entirely, were for $83.25 million to the US and $22.7 million to Canada.
Throughout the rest of the year, Allied forces continued to liberate numerous concentration camps, exposing the extent of Nazi atrocities.
In 1945, post-war, Plymouth faced immense devastation from the Blitz, which had destroyed the city’s heart and left thousands homeless. Plymouth was one of the most heavily bombed British cities, due to its status as a major naval port with the large HMNB Devonport dockyard.
The city centre, two main shopping areas, almost all civic buildings, 26 schools, 41 churches, and 3,754 houses were destroyed, with a further 18,000 properties seriously damaged. Around 30,000 people were left homeless, leading to a critical shortage of accommodation. Temporary prefabricated houses were quickly erected to provide immediate shelter. I remember seeing the ‘pre-fabs’ still in use in the 1960s.
The most urgent efforts were to house the population, clear the bombed buildings – which, still, years later, were my playgrounds – and begin an ambitious pre-planned reconstruction project. All the while I was growing up, this building and planning went on. When I left Plymouth at 18, the rebuilding continued until the early 1970s.
While rummaging through the Dusty Old Boxes containing family memorabilia, I came upon letters written by you to your only brother, my father, Tom. There were also letters written to your sweetheart during WWII while you were stationed in England serving with the RCAF. So I thought the best way to remember you would be in the form of a letter.
Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Lucy and I am one of your nieces.
Our paths never crossed. I was only born in 1957 and you died in 1943. Your brother had seven children. I was his fourth. His eldest son, born in 1949, was named after you – William Sherron Anglin II.
While staying with my family in England in 2016, I visited you in person at your last known address: Runnymede Memorial[1], Panel 179, Surrey, UK. My grandchildren, who always enjoy a challenge, accompanied me in my search to find you. It didn’t take them long to find your panel and you – or your name, that is – inscribed on one of several stone walls, along with 20,000 other airmen, at this dedicated memorial building on Cooper’s Hill overlooking the Thames River.
Your name was too high up for the children to touch but I brushed my fingers lovingly over your name and told you we were there. I am quite sure you knew it. You had an interest in mental telepathy, as did your grandfather, and his story was documented in the family boxes as well. (Surgeon and Mentalist)
Throughout your letters to Tom, along with childhood memories, you shared and referred to an interest in The Rosicrucian Order which “is a community of mystics who study and practice the metaphysical laws governing the universe”.[2]
You maintained the belief in an ability to “project” yourself and to send mental messages. I can only guess that a feeling of closeness to your brother by any means must have consoled you greatly while away at war in England.
In your letters to your sweetheart, you described England in general (with the usual complaints about the rainy weather), your life with the RCAF, weekend leaves to Scotland and dances in the mess hall “wishing you were there”. Although I don’t have her letters in response, I am sure you took great comfort in hearing from her.
You were sent on a training course at the end of May 1943 and, while away, your crew went on a mission without you – never to return. In the last letter to your girl, you confided that you were feeling “depressed” at their loss. On the very next mission, you went missing as well.
Last picture of Uncle Bill (far left) – 1943
Not long afterwards, your sweetheart sent a bundle of your cherished letters, wrapped in a bow, to your mother and wrote “I know I want to forget as soon as I am able, everything – and so I am sending you the few letters I had saved from those Bill sent me from England. I hope that you would rather have them, than not … perhaps they will make you glad to have something more – to know something else of Bill’s life in England … rather than rake up memories you are trying to forget. For while I want to forget, I feel so sure that you will want to remember.”
Your mother never gave up hope that you would return one day.
The abundant number of photos found with the letters in these boxes show your 27 years filled with family times – gatherings, annual trips, formal portraits, a few pets and a full life.
William Sherron Anglin was an Air/Gunner and Warrants Officer II with the 429 Squadron flying in a Wellington X bomber, Serial no. HZ471.
Reason for Loss:
Took off from R.A.F. East Moor, North Yorkshire at 22.36 hrs joining 719 aircraft attacking the town of Wuppertal, the home of the Goldchmitt firm which produced Tego-Film, a wood adhesive used in the production of the HE162 and TA154 (aircraft). Around 1000 acres was destroyed in the firestorm that followed – 211 industrial buildings and nearly 4,000 houses were totally destroyed. A figure of 3,400 fatalities on the ground has been recorded. Bomber command did not escape lightly on this operation losing some 36 aircraft.
It is thought “probable” that HZ471 was shot down by Lt. Rolf Bussmann, flying out of Venlo airfield, and attacking this Wellington at 3,700 meters with the aircraft falling into the sea off Vlissingen.
I recently discovered that I am related to my kindergarten teacher’s husband! There are certainly tangled webs of relationships all through our family histories. Following direct ancestor lines often leads you to people you might know about. Exploring other branches of siblings, aunts, and uncles can uncover connections you never knew you had. This is how this one was untangled.
The online death notice for Shirley Harris (1927-2025) in the Montreal Gazette caught my eye. Her name sounded familiar so I started reading her obituary. It mentioned she was 98, had a brother, John and sister, Ann. These names didn’t ring a bell, so I closed it just as my eyes caught the name Paul von Colditz. I remembered that there was a connection with a Shirley von Colditz and our family.
Ida Bruneau, one of my mother’s cousins, wrote a family history, “The Short History of the Bruneaus and Girods”. In it, Ida mentions Shirley von Colditz as a very dear friend of hers. They discovered they were distant cousins. Shirley descended from Medard Bruneau (1811-1892) and Ida and I from his brother Barnabé. They were the sons of Antoine Bruneau (1773-1847) and Marie Robidoux (1775-1847). This meant that Shirley and Ida were third cousins once removed.
My husband and I used to be members of the Montreal Badminton Squash Club. An Eric von Colditz also played badminton there. Years ago, I read Ida’s book. After that, I asked Eric if he thought we were very distant cousins. He said no. Shirley was his stepmother.
I carefully reread the obituary. “Shirley was the devoted wife of the late Paul von Colditz and the loving sister of the late John Harris ( the late Patricia Reynolds).” Patricia Harris was the name of my kindergarten teacher. I knew her maiden name was Reynolds, as my mother knew her sister Moyra Reynolds. Pat’s obituary confirmed she had sisters-in-laws Shirley and Ann. So I was related to her husband John.
Mrs. Harris and Miss Gael were my two kindergarten teachers at Somerled School in Notre Dame de Grace, Montreal. I started there in the fall of 1957. This school just opened in January 1957. I was in the first class to go through all the grades at Somerled School. I enjoyed kindergarten and remembered my teachers fondly.
John and Pat Harris had two children, Kathy and John. At one time, their son John lived on Percival Ave. in Montreal West, where I also lived. During a street-wide garage sale, my husband returned from down the street. He said, “One of your teachers is selling tea cups in front of a house.” I went and had a chat with Mrs Harris. Her son was someone I recognized but never talked to. He had a wife, three daughters and a dog. I figure John and I are fourth cousins once removed. Unfortunately, he no longer lives on Percival. I can’t tell him of our connection. Not even six degrees of separation.
Notes:
A Short History of the Bruneau Girod Families by Ida Bruneau. Ste. Agathe des Monts, Quebec, May 1993. Page 8. A copy in the hands of the author.
Shirley Harris was the daughter of Irene Bruneau (1901-1987) and Herbert Harris.
Irene was the daughter of Eugene Albert Bruneau (1875-1939) and Eliza W. Thompson
Albert was the son of Ophir Bruneau (1848-1920) and Hermaline Piche (1949-1901)
Ophir was the son of Medard Bruneau (1811-1892) and Marie S. Megrette (1822-1853)
Medard was the son of Antoine Bruneau (1773-1847) and Marie J. Robidoux 1775-1847)
Barnabé and Medard were brothers:
Barnabé was the son of Antoine Bruneau (1773-1847) and Marie J. Robidoux 1775-1847).
Ismael was the son of Barnabe (1807-1880) and Sophie Marie Louise Prud’homme (1812-1892).
Sydney was the son of Ismael Bruneau (1852-1918) and Ida Girod ( 1862-1927).
Sydney was my grandmother Beatrice’s brother
Ida Bruneau was the daughter of Sydney Bruneau ( 1893-1979) and Ruth Dawson ( 1894-1971).
This makes Ida and Shirley 3rd cousins once removed!
Moyra Reynolds was on the women’s executive at the Catherine Booth Hospital. She worked alongside my mother, who was also a cousin of John Harris. Moyra and her friend Eileen glued my mother’s little tatted flowers onto hasty notes. These cards were sold for the benefit of the Catherine Booth Hospital. Moyra was living in the Montclair Residence when my mother moved in. They lived on the same floor. Moyra was excited that my mother was coming and hoped to make more hasty notes. Unfortunately, she soon suffered a stroke and was in hospital for a while. She came back to the Montclair. However, her needs were too great for them to handle and she moved to another residence.
One time when I was visiting my mother, a young woman was clearing out Moyra’s room. I thought afterwards that she might have been Moyra’s niece and my kindergarten teacher’s daughter. I am sorry I didn’t speak to her.
There was a family connection with Somerled School and another connection to Percival Avenue. Percival Ave is a street of just three blocks in the town of Montreal West. Ida’s sister Mary Bruneau and her husband George Davidson once lived on Percival. Their home was just across the street from where John Harris later lived. Ed Hawkes married my mother’s cousin Ephese Jousse, also related to John Harris. His parents lived a block south on Percival. I live on Percival now!
Syrian girl with her wares. (National Geographic, November, 1925. Article cited below. This magazine is in the public domain according to Library of Congress. Gervaise Courtellemont. Lumiere company.
Prologue: In my last post I explained how I recently learned, through DNA, that my biological father was likely Pontic Greek on the father’s side. Pontic Greeks are Orthodox Christian Turks who believed they are descended from ancient Greeks, who once lived on the southern coast of the Black Sea in cites like Samsun and Trabzon and who speak either a unique form of Greek or Turkish. In that post, I also wrote about the 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey. Here, I elaborate.
In 2010, I visited my older brother who lives in Denmark at his holiday home in Plomari, Lesbos, Greece. The large island of Lesbos is off the northwest coast of Turkey. On a good day you can see Turkey from the capital city of Mytilini. It’s only 17 miles away.
Back in 2010, before I explored my DNA, I naturally assumed I was half French Canadian and half Yorkshire British, just like my older brother, but I also knew, deep down in my heart of hearts, that I resembled the Greek locals, both in looks and in temperament.
Plomari village from the back window of my brother’s place. The harbour is two streets down.
Today, I understand that I am very likely related to some of those local Greek citizens on Lesbos, perhaps even closely related. I know this because of a photograph I recently discovered in an article from the November, 1925 National Geographic magazine.
Greek refugees arriving in Mytilini. 1923
There is no shortage of online information on the 1923 Greek/Turk ‘population exchange’ that came on the heels of a horrific event referred to back then as ‘The Smyrna Holocaust,’ but I had high hopes that this story entitled History’s Greatest Trek. Tragedy stalks through the near east as Greece and Turkey exchange 2,000,000 of their people, written in real time by a world class journalist in a world class magazine, would shed some light on the path my Pontic bio-father (or grandfather) may have taken to reach Montreal, Canada in 1954.
I have tree matches in Samsun, a port on the Black Sea in northern Turkey. My mother, who lived and worked in the Notre Dame de Grace area of the city, likely knew Greek men whose grandparents fled Smyrna (now Izmir) in 1922, on the west coast of Anatolia on the Mediterranean Sea. Could I connect the two places?
I was not disappointed. Right at the beginning of the sixty page article there’s a picture of a young Greek man from Samsun. The caption reads: A Refugee from Samsun. He took part in the first trek of 100,000 refugees from the Anatolian interior.
According to online sources, post WWI, most elite Greeks in Samsun were killed off and all other able-bodied men sent into the interior to join the Turkish army.
Clearly, some of these Pontic Greek men and women escaped the Turkish hinterland to make it to the Mediterranean coast and Smyrna in 1922, in the hope of catching a ride to safety.
This 60 page article from 1925 is a classic piece of National Geographic reporting. It is workman-like in its execution with a prose style on the flowery side. The article offers readers a succinct historical and political perspective on the infamous 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey. The reporting is objective: The Muslim story is discussed with as much respect as the Christian story. And, of course, the article contains many, many photographs, about one hundred of them. Oddly, the prettiest colour ones all depict quiet Turkish life.
There’s a fascination here with exotic dress, from what I can see.
Still, the author, Melville Chater, pulls no punches as he uses his gift with words to capture the true horror of the situation in the port of Smyrna during the late summer of 1922: the hope, despair, death and disease and, eventually, the chaos, the total breakdown of civilized life.
Chater and his companion were in that coastal city when the Greek military lines collapsed in August, 1922, effectively ending the three year old Greco-Turkish war. They were in Smyrna in September to witness the Greek soldiers flee home on their military barques, leaving only ‘neutral’ observer boats in the habour.
Immediately thereafter, they saw the victorious Turkish cavalry enter the city, the riders’ left palms outstretched in a peace gesture, and a few days hence they witnessed the great fire of Smyrna that forced local citizens to flee in chaos to the quay and mix with the tens of thousands of refugees from further afield amassed there. By this time “the city had become a gigantic blast furnace… Affrighted faces mingled with wild-eyed animals, and human cries with the neigh of horses, the scream of camels, and, last, the squeaking of rats, as they scuttled by in droves from the underworld of a lost Smyrna.”
The beginning, late August, 1922.
“Refugees from anywhere within 150 miles inland herded seaward into Smyrna. At first they came in orderly trainloads or in carts, with rug-wrapped bedding, some little household equipment, and perhaps even a few animals, But as the distant military momentum speeded up, the influx became a wild rabble of ten, then twenty, then thirty thousand a day. Their increasingly scanty possessions betokened a mad and yet madder stampede from the scene of sword and fire, until September 7 saw utterly destitute multitudes staggering in, the women wailing over the first blows of family tragedy, whereby mothers with no food for their babies had been forced to abandon their older children in wayside villages….
….By now Smyrna’s broad quay swarmed with perhaps 150,000 exiles who camped and slept there, daily stretching their rugs as makeshift shelters against the sun, whose furnace-like heat was the mere forerunner to a terrible epic of fire.”
The Greek Army flees,the Turkish cavalry arrives.
On September 23rd, a fire breaks out in the Armenian quarter. The Turks give permission for women and children and old men to leave. People are dispatched to Athens to organize a flotilla of rescue boats. The Turks then give the rescuers one week to evacuate the refugees or they will be forced into the interior. Further chaos ensues.
“Uncounted hundreds were crushed to death or pushed over the quayside to drown, on that first day, when eight ships, convoyed by American destroyers left with 43,000 souls aboard. For those left behind there remained but six more chances—a chance a day—then the black despair of deportation into the interior.
These men were not allowed to leave Smyrna after the fire with their families. “Everyone from peasants to bankers” is how these Anatolian Greek refugees are described in the article. Also as “human derelicts” and descendants of ‘those adventurous spirits who had followed Alexander the Great into Asia.” Some men apparently escaped at Smyrna, swimming to rescue boats under the cover of night. Some wealthier men bought their way onto boats. 300,000 thousand people were evacuated in two weeks, including 100, 000 ‘cellar-hiders’ in Smyrna, uncovered by the Turks in a house-to-house search.
The aftermath:
A notification is posted permitting (well, forcing) all non-Muslims to leave Asia Minor before November, 30, 1922. Hoardes of Anatolian Greeks, former prisoners of war, men, women and children, head to the Black Sea coast.
“With ship-deserted quays, as at Smyrna, and with the Black Sea ports glutted with sidewalk-sleeping, disease breeding paupers, who had been thrifty cottagers a few weeks before, the gap was finally bridged by the arrival of Greek ships flying the Stars and Stripes and convoyed by American destroyers….
….”By January, 1923, Athens had slammed its official doors protesting against further expulsions.”
With a big nudge from the US, Britain and the League of Nations, Athens agreed to accept hundreds of thousands more Christian Greek refugees in an exchange for Muslims living in Greece.
The exchange would begin in May, 1923 and be carried out in various ways. Most Greek refugees are funnelled to the Athens region as well as to Thessonaliki in the northern part of Greece and to some Aegean Islands like Lesbos.
They live in refugee camps rife with disease and death. There is little usable land left in Greece due to past wars.
Greece, then a country of 6 million souls, would take in almost a million and a quarter refugees within a year of the Smyrna disaster, increasing its population by 25 percent.
“There is no adequate parallel whereby to convey even remotely a picture of Greece’s plight in 1923,” Chater summarizes.
Pretty heavy stuff – and yet the 1925 magazine article somehow manages to maintain the feel of a breezy travelogue.
Greek refugee camp Macedonia
Epilogue:
In the style of Virginia Woolf’s 1925 masterpiece Mrs. Dalloway, I imagine a comfortably middle class lady, back in the mid 1920’s, perhaps my husband’s grandmother in her favourite club chair in her cottage in Westmount, flipping through this very issue of the National Geographic, cup of tea in one hand. The inky new pages crackle as she turns them with her free hand. “How awful,” she whispers under her breath when she gets to the bit about the Greek women holding their still-born babies at their breasts because they had no place to bury them. And, then, “How pretty,” as she eyes the flowing costumes on the Turkish women, the colourful mosques and the charming minurats. And, then, as she comes to the full-page advertisement for Campbell’s Soup at the end of the article, she perhaps thinks, “Yes, tomato soup for the children, for tomorrow’s lunch.”
In the last mad dash to send Beads in the Necklace to print, we had to make sure that the names in the stories were right. Genealogists struggle with the difficulties of names every day.
There was the question of those pesky hyphens. In French Canada, hyphenated names are common. But not every double name takes a hyphen. Then what about apostrophes that were simply dropped?
And accents. Some French names had accents and others not. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason.
Some of the people in our stories had unusual names. Hermonie? Maybe it was Harmonie? Or even Hermionie? It was Herminie. And is it Catherine or Catharine? Or Isabelle or Isabella?
And how many ways can you spell Jodouin? Each source document seemed to have a different spelling.
And then what about place names. Do we use the French place name or the anglicized place name? With or without accents?
All these variations in the names made me think of my husband’s surname. I asked him, “Why do some people in your family spell their name Delatolas as Dellatolas, with two letter ls?
He shrugged, “I dropped an “l” when I emigrated to Canada.”
“Besides, my father and my brother had already dropped an “l”. Anyway, who cares?”
Most history books define the Battle of the Somme as a disaster, but French Canadians can claim it as their first military success.
It also represented the integration of a new kind of leadership in European battle tactics, one in which every soldier counted.
Both of those realities are due to the contribution of the 22nd Regiment, known colloquially as the Van Doos based on its French name “vingt-deux.” Today the unit holds an official French name, the Royal 22e Régiment, an important symbol of its identity and importance.
“It’s arguable that the tactics that the Van Doos taught the Canadians won the war,” said author and historian Desmond Morton, who had authored forty-seven books about Canada by the time he died in September 2019. “It was formed and was trained in a way that was uniquely French-Canadian. The Colonel of the Regiment was an ex-cadet of the Royal Military College…Tremblay had a different philosophy of leadership and he showed it.”
One of the most recognized leaders was Lieutenant Colonel Thomas-Louis Tremblay, who led the Van Doos during their WWI triumphs and left behind his French-language diaries to inspire followers.
Tremblay was the first to use tanks to get over and past enemy dug-outs during an artillery barrage. The tactic relied on every soldier being willing to move through active artillery and kill defenders individually in hand-to-hand combat. The brutal but effective operation enabled his unit to capture the village of Flers-Courcelette from the Germans on September 15, 1916. They held the position for two days.
The 22nd Batallion’s effectiveness in Courcelette persuaded General Sir Arthur William Currie, who was in charge of the Canadian Army, to change his thinking about Vimy Ridge. Tunnels, barbed wire and three rows of trenches protected the strategic site to such an extent that tit was considered largely impregnable by the British and French. The French-Canadian success at Courcelette made them think that maybe someone could capture the strategic site.
The following spring, the Van Doos and three other Canadian divisions moved toward the 14-km-long escarpment at 5:30 a.m. on Monday, April 9, 1917. It took four days, 3,598 deaths and 7,000 wounded men to capture the ridge.
Success was due primarily to training that ensured that every soldier knew what to do and did it, even as commanding officers died.
The Vimy capture may have relied on the Van Doo success at Courcelette, but the Van Doos themselves would never have existed without a private donation by prominent Montreal entrepreneur and philanthropist Arthur Mignault. In 1914, the head of the Franco-American Chemical Company donated $50,000 to create a regiment “composed of and officered by French Canadians.” His offer resulted in the creation of the 22nd Battalion (French Canadian) CEF on October 14, 1914. Mignault and then Opposition leader Sir Wilfred Laurier spent the next month recruiting a full contingent of more than 20,000 men who formed the bulk of Tremblay’s men.
Migneault, who made his fortune selling iron pills to women with anemia, had already enlisted with the 65th Regiment “Carabiniers Mont-Royal” five years earlier. After his 22nd Division success, he went on to subsidize the founding of two additional French-Canadian divisions, but they got folded into the 22e to replace casualties.
Migneault had hoped to be appointed to lead a battalion. Realizing that subsidizing infantry divisions wouldn’t make that happen, he decided to fund military hospitals. Just as the Van Doos were heading to war in early 1915, Mignault succeeded in encouraging the Canadian government to build a French Canadian stationary hospital near the German frontlines in Saint-Cloud. By November 1915, Mignault was on his way to France along with 100 men to set up the hospital.
Laval University followed suit with a second French Canadian Hospital, and both became so important, the French renamed part of Joinville-le-Pont near Paris the “quartier des Canadiens.”
Mignault not only realized his ambition to become a colonel, but a month before his death in 1937, the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps promoted him to the honorary rank of Brigadier General. He was the first French Canadian to hold that rank.
Members of the Royal 22e Régiment fought in Italy and in the Pacific during World War II, in Korea, in the Gulf War, and in Afghanistan. They were also the first Regular Force regiment to mount the King’s Guard in London in 1940, and repeated the experience again for their hundredth anniversary in 2014. They also served during the Oka Crisis in 1990.
Today, the regiment forms the largest unit in the Canadian Army, with three Regular Force battalions, two Primary Reserve battalions, and a band. Its ceremonial home is La Citadelle in Quebec City, although members are stationed at Valcartier and other bases throughout Quebec.
In a previous blog entitled Dad’s Early Years the focus was on my Dad, Karl Victor Lindell, and a recollection of his childhood growing up along the shores of Lake Erie until his High School Graduation from Ashtabula Harbor High School in 1923.
Upon graduation Karl set his sights on enrolling in Michigan College of Mines in Houghton, situated in the upper Peninsula of Michigan. It was there that he spent the next few years as a student.
In 1967, Many years after his 1928 graduation, he was invited to deliver the commencement address.
Over time Michigan College of Mines, developed and later became known as Michigan Technological University.
In 1972 at Michigan Technological University Dad received the Distinguished Alumnus Award
Below is a copy of the text of the citation that outlines a summary of Dad’s stellar career.
Michigan Technological University”
Alumni Association
Distinguished Alumnus Award
Karl Victor Lindell, BS., E.M., 1928
Danville, Quebec, Canada
Most likely, it was growing up in the iron port of Ashtabula. Ohio that first stirred his interest in mining. Whatever it was that brought Karl Lindell to Michigan College of Mines in the mid-1920s, it is safe to assume that even in his wildest dreams of the future, he could not have imagined that was to unfold as a result of this decision.
Professionally, there was little doubt about his competence. Out of school less than ten years, Karl Lindell was already the assistant to the general superintendent of all International Nickel mines in Copper Cliff, Ontario. In 1945, he elected to join Canadian Johns Manville Company, and within six years, he was general manager of the Asbestos Fiber Division.
While still retaining operation of that division, he was elected chairman of the Board of Canadian Johns Manville in 1961. Six years later he was given additional responsibilities as senior vice-president and director of the parent US company.
By this time, he was world-renowned as an authority on asbestos mining and the special health hazards inherent in the industry. Even after his retirement from Johns Manville in 1970, he continues to chair one occupational and environmental health commission while serving as a consultant to another.
For his many contributions to the mining industry in his adopted country – he became a naturalized Canadian in 1939 – Karl Lindell has been honored with Doctor of Science degrees from both Laval and Sherbrooke universities. In 1967 he was invited to deliver the commencement address in Houghton and there received the Doctor of Engineering from his own alma mater. Numerous other professions and civic honors also have been awarded over the years.
It is with great pride that this Association – in consideration of the aforementioned criteria does hereby confer its highest mark of esteem upon a respected and faithful member.
In witness, there is attached hereto the Seal of the Michigan Technological University, the signature of the President, and the signature of the President of the Alumni Association.
Dated in Houghton, Michigan. This fourth day of August 1972 A.D.
His life allowed him to travel the world on behalf of the Asbestos industry; however, when he was home, he joined his sons in the sauna and enjoyed a round of golf with us.
He was a son, a brother, a husband, a father, an uncle, a grandfather, a great-grandfather, and a kind friend to all who knew him.
For the numerous years I have been doing genealogy, I have found many, many family names. I have met, but only when very young, paternal family members associated with my research. My parents divorced when I was seven, and after that, I never had any further contact with the paternal side of the family.
However, 13 years ago, I was contacted via ‘Friend Reunited’, a now-defunct website, by a second cousin on my Dad’s side. Samantha was my cousin Cheryl’s daughter, and she was searching for members of the Bulford family to include in her parents’ anniversary gift of genealogy. Through Sam, I was united with Cheryl, my first cousin, and from there, I met more first cousins I had never met before.
This was SO exciting! There was Diane, my Aunt Sylvia’s daughter, Cheryl, Aunt Florence’s daughter, Joanna, Uncle Roy’s daughter and David and Jonathan, his sons.
All familiar names, but people I had never met or even thought I would ever meet. We all contacted each other via the internet in great excitement, and exchanged the information we had all collected, and they sent me photos I had never seen, of my Dad and his family.
After numerous emails, we decided to meet in the UK when I went over for my annual holiday. As this was the paternal side of my family, we met in Cornwall, where my father and my cousins’ mothers and fathers were all born. I met, once again after 68 years, my Uncle Roy, at his apartment, where he lived with his wife, Aunt Evelyn, 90,
Uncle Roy, at that time, was 94 and the last surviving member of the 11 children born to my father’s family. He died in 2022, when he was 106 years old.
Uncle Roy and Aunt Evelyn
Uncle Roy’s sons, David and Jonathan, were there with their sister Joanna, plus Diane and Cheryl, nieces of my Dad, and suddenly, just like that, I had met five cousins!
From the left: Marian, Cheryl, Joanna and Diane
My handsome Cuz Jonathan
I had brought photos and they had some too, which we all pored over. I learned so much about the family in that short visit, to add to my family tree. First though, lunch and what better way to celebrate our ‘Cornishness’ than with a Cornish Pasty? Made by Joanna, it was delicious
A homemade local treat, the Cornish Pasty, made by Joanna
I showed David and Jonathan a treasured photo of me, aged three, which was taken by Dad on a beach in Newquay, one of the last visits to Dad’s family before the divorce.
I wondered aloud where it could have been taken.
Marian, aged three, Towan Beach, Newquay, Cornwall, England.
David took me by the hand to the balcony of Uncle Roy’s apartment and opened the door. He pointed to the beautiful beach in view, and said, ‘This is Towan Beach where your photo was taken,’ and there before me, as in my photo, was the beach and the houses on the cliff behind me, still prominent today. Then I did cry. (1)
My other handsome cuz David
Towan Beach today
The next day, we all had a family reunion Sunday lunch with wives and children, in the local pub. We reminisced, we took photos and promised to keep in touch, which we have done so every year for the last 13 years. Every year I visit the UK, we have our Bulford reunion, usually in the West Country at a local pub, and each year I find out more about my Dad’s family.
Photos, war records, marriages, deaths, and some researched information I had that my cousins did not know about were all shared via the internet.
PLUS a recently found USA Bulford branch too, which is the basis for this story.
Montreal in 1832, painting by James Duncan. McCord Stewart Museum.
This view of the city of Montreal from the slope of Mount Royal was painted by artist James Duncan in 1832. In the distance, the city lay on the banks of St. Lawrence River, while in the foreground, the foot of the mountain was rural and traversed by only one road – today’s Saint-Laurent Boulevard.
This area is now a dense neighbourhood of homes, shops and commercial buildings, but 200 years ago, it was described as a neighbourhood of rural villas. Several of those buildings belonged to my ancestors, including butcher John Clark (1767-1827) and merchant Stanley Bagg (1788-1853). These homes were all torn down years ago, but fortunately, artists and photographers captured them before they disappeared. This article tells their stories.
Saint-Laurent Boulevard began as a country road passing through a landscape with a mix of rural functions. In the 1700s, a large tannery was located nearby, to the east along Mount Royal Avenue. Later, numerous quarries were excavated to provide the grey limestone used for much of Montreal’s Victorian architecture – churches, civic buildings, places of business and attractive houses. The Beaubien family acquired a large tract of land along the east side of the road in 1842, as well as property in what later became the municipality of Outremont. A railway line was built across the Bagg and Beaubien land in 1876, along which an industrial corridor emerged in the early 1900s.
During the lifetimes of the Clarks and Baggs, their property, on the west side of Saint-Laurent, was farmland. The soil was mostly sandy and rocky. Hay to feed cattle and horses was the main crop, but vegetables and fruit trees could be grown in fertile areas. Back from the road, rising up toward the side of the mountain, there were a handful of rural villas belonging to the Baggs and a few neighbours, including the Perrault-Nowlan and the Hall families.
Butcher John Clark, my four-times great-grandfather, was the first member of my family to live in this area. He brought his wife and young daughter to Montreal around 1797 from County Durham, in northern England, and began investing in land. In 1804, Clark purchased a farm on the west side of Saint-Laurent, and over the next few years, he added adjacent parcels of land. He called the property Mile End Farm, probably inspired by Mile End in London, England.1 His choice of name is still familiar today, as this neighbourhood is known as Mile End. In 1810, he leased the farm to American-born Phineas Bagg (c. 1751-1823) and his son Stanley,2 and they ran an establishment called the Mile End Tavern there until 1818.
Montreal Hunt Club at Mile End Road, Montreal, QC, 1859. photograph by J. Henry, MP-1978.29.8, McCord Stewart Museum. The corner of the building on the right is likely the Mile End Tavern.
After Phineas retired and Stanley moved on to other business interests, various tenants operated the Mile End Tavern. It was demolished in 1902 when the local municipality expropriated the land to widen Saint-Laurent Boulevard. New owners purchased the lot in 1905, and the following year a department store opened on the corner of Saint-Laurent and Mount Royal Avenue, where the tavern had stood for so long.3 The department store was converted into a commercial building during the Great Depression. Today, a Couche Tard convenience store and a Tim Horton’s coffee shop are on its ground floor.
By 1891, both Stanley Bagg and his son Stanley Clark Bagg had died and most of the Mile End Farm property was sold by the late Stanley Clark Bagg’s five adult children to developers McCuaig and Mainwaring.4 An economic depression and lack of basic services such as sewers and tramways delayed development for a few years. Meanwhile, the most valuable lots – the ones that faced Saint-Laurent Boulevard – were divided into five equal shares and allocated at random to the five Bagg siblings.5
Map of Mile End Farm and the locations of Mile End Tavern, John Clark’s Mile End Lodge, Stanley Bagg’s Durham House and Stanley Clark Bagg’s Fairmount Villa, prepared by Justin Bur, 2024.
John Clark’s house was not as well known as the nearby tavern. In 1815, Clark sublet a 16-acre square of land back from the Baggs, a “piece of ground on which is erected a new house of butchery called by the said John Clark, Mile End Lodge”6 – in reality, a two-storey stone house for his family. Facing south, toward the city and the river, it was located between the current Bagg and Duluth Streets, just above what was then the Montreal city limit.
After Clark’s death in 1827, his widow, Mary Mitcheson Clark, moved to a smaller house at the current northwest corner of Bagg and Clark Streets. An inscription noting that this was once the location of the Mitcheson Cottage can still be seen on the foundation of the house that stands there today,
Mrs. Mitcheson’s Cottage, watercolour painting by John Hugh Ross, Stewart Museum collection, McCord Stewart Museum, Montreal.
As for Mile End Lodge, although it remained in the hands of Clark’s descendants, no family members ever lived there again. Various tenants rented it over the years. The land around it was subdivided, with a chunk sold in 1873 and the rest in 1893, but the house itself was not sold until 1914. The badly deteriorated building was demolished soon after that, and there is now a large commercial building in that location.7
Mile End Lodge, watercolour painting by John Hugh Ross. Stewart Museum collection, McCord Stewart Museum, Montreal.
Durham House, the home of my three-times great-grandparents Stanley Bagg and Mary Ann Clark, was located south of the tavern and Mile End Lodge. John Clark purchased the property in December, 1814 and gave it to his daughter as a wedding present in 1819. Durham House was on Saint-Laurent Boulevard, at the current southwest corner of Prince Arthur. Early references describe its address as Côte à Baron.
Durham House, watercolour painting by John Hugh Ross, Stewart Museum collection, McCord Stewart Museum, Montreal.
This two-storey stone building also faced south. There was a covered well on the property, a barn and several other outbuildings. The original Durham House property measured 6 ¾ x 4 arpents, so it was a large piece of land, including property between Prince Arthur and Guilbault Streets, known as the Upper Garden.
After Stanley Bagg’s death in 1853, Durham House was briefly used as a school, then it housed a fruit store for a number of years. Meanwhile, the large property that surrounded it was one of the first to be subdivided for building lots. Stanley Clark Bagg subdivided it in 1846, and the Upper Garden was subdivided by his heirs in 1889. The house was demolished in 1928 to allow for the expansion of the modern TD Bank branch which sits on the spot today.
Stanley Bagg also purchased land near the corner of Sherbrooke Street and St. Urbain at a sheriff’s sale in 1837, and sold it to his son in 1844. Stanley Clark Bagg and his wife, Catharine Mitcheson Bagg (1822–1914), built a large house they called Fairmount Villa on that lot and raised their five children there. The house included a small chapel, while the irregularly shaped property, which extended to the boundary of the Durham House land, had a garden with lilac trees, statues and flower beds. The house was likely named after Fairmount Park in Philadelphia, where Catharine grew up.
Fairmount Villa. photograph, Bagg family collection.
Stanley Clark Bagg died in 1873, but Catharine remained at Fairmount Villa for the rest of her life. The house was sold in 1915, and it was demolished in 1949 when Saint-Urbain Street was widened.
The Fairmount property (lot 100 of the cadastre of St. Lawrence Ward) was subdivided in 1872, then redivided in 1922. In 1884, Stanley Clark Bagg’s son, Robert Stanley Bagg (1848-1912), built a house on one of the subdivided lots, at 436 (later 3470) Saint-Urbain. He and his young family moved to a bigger house in a more exclusive neighbourhood on Sherbrooke Street West a few years later, and his sister Mary Heloise Lindsay and her family lived in the house on Saint-Urbain from 1890 until 1906. The house changed street numbers several times, then changed vocations: it became part of the Herzl Jewish Hospital, was subdivided into apartments, and was finally demolished in the early 1960s.
This house on St. Urbain Street was designed for Robert Stanley Bagg by architect William McLea Walbank. When this photo was taken the building was a medical clinic known as the Herzl Dispensary.
Today, two large buildings that once housed Montreal’s school of fine arts are located on the former Fairmount property. The smaller one, of yellow brick, at 3450 Saint-Urbain, was designed by celebrated architects Omer Marchand and Ernest Cormier in 1923 for the École des beaux arts de Montréal. It will soon be home to Montreal’s new Afro-Canadian Cultural Centre.
The larger building, at 125 Sherbrooke St. W., a heritage building constructed in 1905 as the Commercial and Technical High School, later became the Marie-Claire Daveluy building of the Bibliothèque nationale du Québec (1982–1997). It has housed l’Office québécoise de la langue française since 1999.
Notes
Built by the Sulpician priests in 1717, Saint-Laurent Boulevard was initially known as a grand chemin du Roy – Great King’s Highway. Over the years it has been known by many names, both English and French, including Chemin Saint-Laurent, St. Lawrence Street and “the Main”. Since 1905, it has been designated Boulevard Saint-Laurent.
The name Côte à Baron, or Coteau Baron, cannot be found on today’s city maps, but in the late 19th century, this was the name of a sloping stretch of Saint-Laurent Boulevard just below Sherbrooke Street and extending a short distance north of there. Côte à Baron was described as a neighbourhood of rural villas. The first-ever Lovell’s city directory for Montreal, published in 1842, listed Stanley Bagg’s home at Côte à Barron. (https://numerique.banq.qc.ca/patrimoine/details/52327/3652365). Another building with a Côte à Baron address, at the northwest corner of Sherbrooke Street and Saint-Laurent, was an extravagant mansion nicknamed Torrance’s Folly. It was built around 1815 by businessman Thomas Torrance and sold to John Molson in 1832. A gas station is now located at that corner.
An arpent is a French unit of measurement that can refer to either area or length. It is equivalent to an acre of land, or about 58 metres in length. It has been replaced by metric measures since 1970, but can still be found in old property records.
Source of the photo of the Herzl Dispensary: The Jew in Canada: a complete record of Canadian Jewry from the days of the French régime to the present time, ed. Arthur Daniel Hart, 1926 (on BAnQ numérique).
This article is also posted on my personal family history blog, Writing Up the Ancestors. It was updated on Sept. 16, 2025 to add the photo of the Herzl Dispensary.
Justin Bur, “À la recherche du cheval perdu de Stanley Bagg, et des origines du Mile End.” A la recherche du savoir: nouveaux échanges sur les collections du Musée McCord; Collecting Knowledge: New Dialogues on McCord Museum Collections. Joanne Burgess, Cynthia Cooper, Celine Widmer, Natasha Zwarich. Montreal: Éditions MultiMondes, 2015.
Genealogy Ensemble 