My father's youngest brother, Edjerton, was 15 years old when his mother died and she was buried on Christmas day 1932. It was the height of the great depression and the dirty thirties in the prairies and he was raised by his father and largely his sister and adult brothers. These were hard times on the prairie farms. He joined the Canadian army after schooling and was shipped to England as a corporal in the Canadian 2nd Infantry Division. He was part of the Dieppe raid on August 19, 1942 and was captured by the German army after 4 days inland. He was to remain a prisoner of war in Stalag 8b for the remainder of the war. I must have written to him when I was 8 years old because he wrote back to me thanking me for the carton of cigarettes and the chewing gum. I still have the letter with the censor stamp.
When he was repatriated he tried a variety of jobs in the Okanagan where his sister and brother lived, but he was rootless. He became an alcoholic. He had a serious car accident when he was drinking and driving and his passenger was killed. He was convicted of manslaughter and jailed. He had other convictions later. Thoughout the time we knew our uncle he was sweet and kind to us, his nieces and nephews, and was always interested in us. There was a Jekyll and Hyde characteristic to him in retrospect.
He eventually realized he couldn't cope with the "civilized world of the 60's" and he learned to cook and spent the rest of his life working in the mining camps of northern Alberta and the Yukon. He wrote to us at Christmas and more often to his sister. My father received a letter sometime in the 80's from a friend of my uncle in Edmonton who reported that He had been in hospital with TB and had died several weeks earlier. He left no possessions and had no issue. He had enough money to pay for his burial. His family had despaired of him and came to try to forget as much as they could. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder was not defined in my uncles time. Sadly, we were all black and white in those days and just wondered why they didn't " just get on with it? "
Winston Churchill wrote 4,987 pages in 6 volumes detailing the events of the 2nd world war. He only devoted 2 and one half pages to the Dieppe raid in his volume the Hinge of Fate. It was largely confined to his "good reasons" to proceed with the raid with primarily 6,000 Canadian troops. 3,367 were killed, wounded, or captured. He determined the raid was a success. Some success!
When he was repatriated he tried a variety of jobs in the Okanagan where his sister and brother lived, but he was rootless. He became an alcoholic. He had a serious car accident when he was drinking and driving and his passenger was killed. He was convicted of manslaughter and jailed. He had other convictions later. Thoughout the time we knew our uncle he was sweet and kind to us, his nieces and nephews, and was always interested in us. There was a Jekyll and Hyde characteristic to him in retrospect.
He eventually realized he couldn't cope with the "civilized world of the 60's" and he learned to cook and spent the rest of his life working in the mining camps of northern Alberta and the Yukon. He wrote to us at Christmas and more often to his sister. My father received a letter sometime in the 80's from a friend of my uncle in Edmonton who reported that He had been in hospital with TB and had died several weeks earlier. He left no possessions and had no issue. He had enough money to pay for his burial. His family had despaired of him and came to try to forget as much as they could. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder was not defined in my uncles time. Sadly, we were all black and white in those days and just wondered why they didn't " just get on with it? "
Winston Churchill wrote 4,987 pages in 6 volumes detailing the events of the 2nd world war. He only devoted 2 and one half pages to the Dieppe raid in his volume the Hinge of Fate. It was largely confined to his "good reasons" to proceed with the raid with primarily 6,000 Canadian troops. 3,367 were killed, wounded, or captured. He determined the raid was a success. Some success!
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