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. Terrace Review — Wednesday, November 7, 1990 AIS”

by Harriett Fjangesund

Leonard Casey, who says he’s
been known as Curly since he
was knee-high to a grasshopper,

_ saw Terrace for the first time in
late April, 1942 when he arrived
from Camp Borden in Ontario
as a Medical Sergeant with the
‘fifth Field Company, R.C.E.
They were the first active service
‘unit off the train. .

toons of engineers; and took
over the Oddfellows Hall, the
- Orange Hall and the ‘Legion
Hall.”’

They quickly set to work pro-
viding water and sewage
facilities, as well as running a
railway spur into the camp area
* for the expected troops.

well all tents in Terrace until the
army was able to build per-
manent buildings. Where Alan
Dubeau has his store (there was

Members of the 747th Air Cadets of Terrace are out in public this week offering poppies as a
reminder of tines and events that no one should be allowed to forget: the value of courage and

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4631 KEITH AVE., TERRACE, B.C., PHONE: 635-4984 .
CALL TOLL FREE - 1-800-772-1128 or sssea

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_ We came here, three pla-:

“From ‘42 to ‘43 it was pretty |

‘Broken Rem embrance

The petals, their lifeblood, shed for our freedom,

The seeds are the bullets, embedded. in Slesh,.

The stem is our country, supporting them Fully, --

The leaves are the homefront, just. hanging:on, Lo
This poppy our symbol of faithful remembrance, wie ba
Each year in November we wear it with pride, .- 0 00.
Then it’s tossed in the garbage, once more forgotien,.. \°: “3 ity wa
Till Novernber brings remembrance again to our minds, :° °°:

| Oh can’t you hear them? They scream out remembrance; an
Why do we. always forget them so soon?. -

Let's always remember the blood shed for freedom, :
The victims, the heroes that gave us our home.

By Laura. Marie Taylor,

Caledonia Senior Secondary, Grade 12.

The above poem, written for the Royal Canadian Legion’ s Poster.’
and Essay-Poems national competition by Laura Marie Taylor of
Terrace, placed third in the provincial selections.

Recalling the war years

an old building there that may
have been a butcher shop), that
was our cook house and dining
room. One thing about the peo-
ple here — they were good peo-
ple, very friendly.”

The civilian population of the
entire Terrace area at the time
was four or five hundred. With-
in a few months approximately
3,000. soldiers and another 3,000

‘construction troops were sta-
tioned at the airport.

Curly’s wife Margaret (daugh-

. ter. of George Little’s brother,

William) was born in Terrace.
‘We had a wonderful little
town, and were more or less in
favour of. the army being here
because we were the second line
of defense in from Prince
Rupert, should the Japanese in-
vade the coast. We had the usual
blackouts, etc. We didn’t live in
fear, but we were very conscious
that this (possibility of an inva-
sion) was very close. An ar-
moured train ran from Terrace
to Rupert every day to make
sure the tracks were okay.”’

“Terrace was actually a little
place hemmed in, in the valley,’’
Curly says. ‘‘There was no
highway. Main street of town
past the 4600 block was a grease
trail as far as Remo. Past Usk
another grease trail. It once took
me four or five hours just to get
to Hazelton.

“Greig Avenue from where
the bus depot used to be on
down to the corner just before
the Skeena Hotel was all swamp.
And where the Co-op is there
was a big swamp and a lake.
Down around the Dairy Queen
there was a big cliff. The army
filled all that in. Below the
tracks, from Imperial Oil, were
all the service centres for food
for the army. The park down
there by the river was all army
barracks.’””

There has been much said
about the altercations between
the soldiers and the civilians, but

Margaret points out that it has

been . overemphasized,

Curly says he wasn’t here very
long before he was transferred
out. He was later discharged for
medical reasons, and returned to
Terrace in 1943 to marry
Margaret.

‘Curly went to work for the
railroad, He was also a
volunteer fire chief after the war
(he took over from Terrace’s
first volunteer fire chief, Jim

Smith). Curly was also the
town’s first paid fire chief,

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