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This article was published 13/9/2010 (3734 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
BILL REDEKOP/WINNIPEG FREE PRESS
Kay Wagner displays her wedding photo from July 1, 1943, which was used as the basis for a painting that is part of the exhibition called War Brides: One Way Passage.
PORTAGE LA PRAIRIE -- When Kay Akehurst, 16, of England met Canadian soldier David Wagner in May 1942, there wasn't much time.
He would soon be deployed to fight the Germans. She had taken on what was regarded back then as "men's work" with the fire department in southeast England where Canadian troops trained during the Second World War.
"We lived for the moment," said Kay, now 85, at a coffee shop in the town of Souris, 230 kilometres southwest of Winnipeg. The couple saw each other whenever their schedules allowed. "In those days, we thought, 'We've got today. Let's make the most of it.'"
Within three months, David was transferred to continental Europe. He returned six months later on a seven-day leave and proposed. On leave six months later, they married. She was 17, he was 24. She had their first child at 18. David never saw their daughter until she was 10 months old.
After the war, in March 1946, Kay and daughter took a 12-day voyage across the Atlantic to Canada. She was one of 44,000 war brides to come to Canada following the Second World War. David's family farmed near Minnedosa. She arrived by train.
She was dumbfounded. Her new home, seven miles from town, had no electricity, indoor plumbing or telephone. She was picked up in a horse-drawn van with a stove inside and a chimney. She knew no one. She was 19.
"I couldn't write home and tell my parents about it because they wouldn't have believed me," she said.
A painting of Kay on her wedding day graces the walls in a new exhibit at the William Glesby Centre in Portage la Prairie -- along with paintings of 79 other war brides who came to Canada.
The exhibit has been displayed in every province except Manitoba until now. Rejected by major galleries in Winnipeg and Brandon, Portage la Prairie considers the show a coup. It's drawing good crowds. A busload of 44 women from Winnipeg visited the first week. One of the women, a war bride, sat down to watch a 23-minute video accompanying the exhibit "and completely fell apart. She couldn't watch it to the end," said curator Jean Armstrong.
Artist Bev Tosh used wedding photos as the basis for 80 paintings of war brides, on display at the William Glesby Centre in Portage la Prairie.
It would be something just to see paintings of any 80 young women on their wedding day, decked out in wedding gowns and dress suits, smiling, laughing, excited, anxious. But our knowing what was in store for the war brides -- and their not knowing -- make the paintings all the more riveting.
Calgary artist Bev Tosh painted them from old wedding photographs. The oil paintings are on sheets of plywood, giving them a sepia effect. It's as if someone painted them down the sides of an old barn. The paintings are lined shoulder-to-shoulder against the walls.
Most of the marriages followed whirlwind courtships, many just two or three weeks and some as short as a few days. You couldn't count on tomorrow. A large number of the women were still in high school.
The Canadian military tried to slow things down by requiring would-be couples to wait at least three months before marrying. After the war, the Canadian government paid the way for 44,000 brides and their 21,000 children to travel from Europe, mostly Britain, to Canada. Brides landed at the Pier 21 customs house in Halifax.
"Many of the brides came here with absolutely no idea what they were getting into," said Armstrong. "They came to Canada almost as pioneers. Many came to farms that were just hovels. They would arrive to just these crummy buildings in the middle of nowhere."
Some wouldn't even get off the train. One woman had to be carried off the arriving ship.
Others weren't lucky at all. One British woman was met at the train station by her Canadian husband with a pregnant lady on his arm. His first words to her were that he wanted a divorce. The woman still ended up staying in Canada.
One English woman met a Cree soldier in London's Hyde Park. They married and made a living running a remote fishing camp in Ontario. Another war bride went to Peigan First Nation in southwestern Alberta, but the relationship didn't last.
Then there's the story of Winnie Field of Brandon, another of the 80 war brides profiled with a painting.
Field, née Harris, met Canadian serviceman Clifford Field in a London pub. Her family home had already been bombed out in an air raid. Winnie and Clifford married and she had their first child. In August 1946, she travelled by train across Canada to meet Clifford at Kamsack, Sask.
When the train arrived, she handed her baby to another woman so she could quickly change out of her nightclothes in the washroom. So when Clifford climbed onto the train and went to his wife's seat, he was miffed. "That's my baby but she's not my wife," he said to the conductor.
"I came out of the biffy with my nightclothes over my arm, my slippers in my hand, and I saw him," continued Winnie. "Well, I just gave out a scream, dropped everything, and ran to him, and we hugged and we kissed and we cried. Then the conductor patted me on the shoulder and said, 'Ma'am, we have to keep the train on schedule.' " The other passengers gave them a standing ovation.
Winnie, now 88, said she couldn't even boil water when she arrived, but she and Clifford raised four children before he was stricken with Parkinson's disease. He died at age 71. "Canada is a wonderful country. We felt wonderful here," she said.
The father of Kay Wagner of Souris gave his daughter enough money for return passage in case her marriage failed. She held on to the money for a good long time. Then one day she used it to buy a John Deere tractor for the farm. She wasn't going back. Fewer than a thousand war brides returned home.
Kay never saw her father again. She didn't return to England for 20 years. Husband David passed away five years ago. They had seven children and, so far, 16 grandchildren and 23 great-grandchildren.
War Brides: One-Way Passage is not a large exhibit, but includes a slide show, a corkboard pinned with over 500 photos of war brides, and a display of handkerchiefs monogrammed with names of ships such the Queen Mary, Norwegian ship Stavangerfjord, Isle de France, Britannic, Empress of Canada, Queen Frederica, and Monarch of Bermuda that brought over the war brides.
Admission is free. The exhibit runs until Oct. 30.
bill.redekop@freepress.mb.ca
Exhibit Preview
War Brides: One-Way Passage
William Glesby Centre, Portage la Prairie
To Oct. 30
Free