Naval vet, devout Catholic celebrates centenary

St. Vital

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This article was published 19/03/2025 (202 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A St. Vital resident recently celebrated his 100th birthday by attending a mass held in his honour.

It was something a person would never forget,” said Joseph de Pape, a lifelong devout Catholic, speaking with a reporter the day after he turned 100 from his room at Actionmarguerite in St. Vital. “Now, I have started living the ordinary life, taking it a day at a time, one hundred-plus.”

The son of Belgian immigrants, de Pape was born on March 10, 1925 in Bruxelles, Man.

“I was born in a farmhouse, without a doctor, without a nurse,” said de Pape — who is fluent in English, French, and Flemish. “In those days, the roads were blocked and, at any rate, there were only a handful of cars around.”

One of 10 children, he worked on the family farm until he turned 18, when he enlisted in the Royal Canadian Navy in 1944.

“The war was still on in full force,” he said.

After basic training at HMCS Chippawa in downtown Winnipeg, de Pape left the province for the first time when he was shipped to Halifax, N.S. He was eventually stationed in Newfoundland.

“I did some hard labour. Jobs that nobody wanted,” de Pape recalled, noting he never saw action during the war.

“On Christmas Eve, 1945, I was inside a boiler. They used crude oil in those days, and it had left a wall of, I don’t know what you’d call it, but it had to be scraped off. And from the ceiling, as well. But the thing was, I had nothing to stand on but a piece of metal bracing. I kept my balance, because below that was two feet of sludge. The things you don’t forget.”

After the war, de Pape spent time on the HMCS Lasalle and in Uganda, where he was part of a crew that dumped surplus ammunition. After being discharged in 1946, he returned to Manitoba and took a diploma in agriculture at the University of Manitoba. After marrying Raymonde in 1949, he returned to Bruxelles to work the family farm, before an injury sustained during work with the navy made the heavy lifting of farmwork impossible. He then became involved with the Veterans Lands Act, and later, as a civil servant in the department of agriculture.

“It was very interesting, very rewarding, and could, on occasion, be almost the opposite of rewarding, because we also had to collect,” de Pape said. “That was the bad part. Collections was rough. You’d get threats like, ‘If you come around again I’ll hit you over the head with an oak fence post!’”

After 25 years with the government, de Pape retired. He said he has always enjoyed singing in choir and playing cards, among other activities. He and Raymonde, who died in 2018, had five children, seven grandchildren, and (to date) 10 great-grandchildren, many of whom joined him for a 100th birthday celebration on March 9.

“The party was lovely. Cheerful all the way through. It was one great big highlight,” de Pape said. “Now, I’m taking it a day at a time.”