The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, November 8, 1995 - AS omen play in war time. — : nade,” a play centered on women in. os Calgary during the Second World War, - if. Seemed only natural that an attempt Jot. enough is. written. “about the role . “So when the Terrace Little Theatre - ecided to put on. “Waiting for the Pa-- _ be made to chronicle the experiences ‘of local residents, The four stories below are the result, The Terrace Standard acknowledges the assistance and contributions of - Yvonne Moen and of the Terrace _ Women’s Resource Centre in this ef- “Waiting for the Parade’? "takes t the R.EM. Lee Theatre stage this Fri day and Saturday. The Terrace Stan=). °°: dard is proud to be a co-sponsor.along: :. : with Branch 13, The Royal Canadian ©: eee Legion, - : WHERE ERIC Turner went, so did his wife, Ella, - Married here in 1943, the couple spent only a brief 7 time together before Bric joined the army. Being in the PBI {cr Poor Bloody Infantry as the - Ropular expression went) meant postings across the = province and elsewhere. Al various times Eric was on the lower mainland, “on Vancouver Island, on the Queen Charlotte Islands and at mountain climbing school in Alberta. * Turner followed Eric where and when possible, 2 coping as best as possible to find a place to live on " the $60 a month the army provided for the spouses of + soldiers. * **¥ou had to go by train. There were no airports x and now highways,’’ Turner recalled of her travels. ~ She also worked wherever she lived to eam the ex- “ra money needed for foad and accommodation. “T struggled to make a few nickels to get to the next place,’’ said Turner. Her greatest challenge came ‘when she followed Eric to the Queen Charlotte Islands, Getting there was terribly rough — so rough they said they were going to anchor in the middle of the ocean,” said Turner. “The boat’ was called the Commotion. What a thing. And then they said it was condemned. We wondered if we were going to make it.” Despite the hardships, Turner and the other wives of soldiers managed to get along. “In the Charlottes, one lady had no idea of how to light a gas lamp or light a slove. She was from Toronte.”” But the day came when Eric received orders first for back east and then for overseas. -“*"He got leave for five days and then he got on the train and left, That was it, He was gone,’ * said Turner. She returned home to work at various places, keep- ing in touch with Eric by mail and sending him par-— cels. “‘Wherever he was, once a month, he got a parcel.’’ - Eric soon found himself on the front lines as s the war in Europe intensified. Slee date rot ge graced “MARGARET. I'M going to go out and find you a boyfriend.” With those words to Margaret Little, Dr. Stanley Mills - went to the train station on an April spring day in-1942 to’ do medical checks on arriving soldicrs. He came back with Leonard ““Curley”” Casey, a young medical sergeant from Ottawa. ‘'We always laugh about that,’’: recalls Margaret who was then working in a drug store. **T first saw him with Dr. Mills through the window of the drug store,’ Dr. Mills, after whom Terrace’s hospital is named, may have done the introductions but it was work that cemented their relationship. Curley's job was to set up medical facilities for the thou- sands of soldiers arriving in Terrace. From an area population of barely 500 at the beginning of the war, the small town became an important military base. And since Margaret worked in the drug store, she and Curley saw a lot of each other as the need for medical facilities and supplies grew. - Yet circumstances soon changed and Curley w was trans- ferred back east the summer of 1942,” “T applied immediately to return,” said Curley, this time as an engineer with one of the field companies stationed here. He returned in September and with more on his mind than simply his army duties. While back cast, Curley proposed to Margaret in a letter. “T bought the ring in Barrie, Ontario,” he said, But the army again intervened, giving Curley orders to return back east once again. An answer NEARLY 50 YEARS after Ema Schulze was separated from her son, the two have been reunited. Their story begins in post-Second World War Czechoslo- vakia, The year was 1946 and alihough the country was liberated from Nazi Germany, peace did not come easy, More than three million people of German heritage living in Czechoslovakia were tumed into refugees and forced to leave the country. - “The Czech partisans demanded that I leave immediate- ‘ly. Our lives were in danger,” recalls Schulze, now living in Old Remo. . ‘Schulze had a baby boy, Amuost, born in October 1943, Deciding it was too risky to flee with him and with the ‘boy’ 8 father already dead — killed by partisans — Schulze ‘placed the boy in the temporary care. of aman and v woman ‘on June 6, 1946. ‘ I thought this was the best thing for my son,"’ said ‘Schulze ‘of Amost, then two years old. ‘‘He would’ be looked after and I would have the best opportunity to lo- cate him ifhe hada family.” Schulze made arrangements to meet the couple, An Austria, ; That never happencd because the woman died sharily “after arid Amost was placed ina children’shome. .. ~.. + Schulze eventually made her way to Canada where. she. . ‘continued her search, - Jar brough THE YOUNG couple of Eric and Ella Tumer are shown at the right in a photo taken just before Eric went overseas during the Second World War. That's Ella (below) today, “Every day he used tn write — once on a stump with bullets flying over his head,”’ Although Turner had plenty of family living in Ter- race, it was a long wait until Eric returned, - She also worked in Prince Rupert and was there on D-Day in June 1944 when the Allies invaded France. “They closed the shops and we all went to the theatre to pray for the soldiers that were in it.’” That was a difficult time for Turner because she didn’t know where Eric was or if he was safe. “I never knew if he was going to come home or . not. He could have been gone like a jot of others in Terrace.”” The end of the war in 1945 was a great relief to Turner but it took six weeks for a letter to arrive from Eric letting her know he was fine. it sadness, happii THE SECOND WORLD War brought Curley and Margaret Casey together, Married in 1942 here in Terrace, the couple spent some of the war years in Ottawa. They retumed to Terrace in 1944 and have | lived here ever since. They've raised four children. : The orders were unexpected, giving Margaret and Curley barely five days to plan their wedding. It took place on Oct. 4 and the couple were able to have a three-day honeymoon before Curley had to leave. ' Margaret followed a month later, staying in Ottawa with her in-laws. It was her first time outside of the Terrace area and her first introduction to a big city. She soon found work in the patent dmg section of A.J. Freeman, a large Ottawa store. to prayer with immigration officials, Red Cross and social services — in Burope, the United States and here to have another look through their records to try and find my son,'’ says Schuize,... “Through all those years, ] prayed to God to bring my son back to me. Sometimes, I felt like giving up, but God renewed my faith and I] would keep on.”" Amost was also looking. He discovered that his mother had moved to Canada but the trail seemed to end there. In 1993, Schulze became acquainted with a family in Prince Rupert who had relatives in Czechoslovakia. - They offered to help and Schulze began a regular cor- respondence. © This connection lead to a phone call to Czechoslovakia on March 5, 1994 where Schulze heard the words: ‘“We ‘ have found your son.” ‘The mother and son talked by phone shortly after, “We were both so:overjoyed, We were able to say little to each. other. Besides, we had ‘a language problem. I couldn’t speak Czech and my son understood “litte English, But God’s live transcends any language batricr,”? In July 1994 Schulze travelled to Czechoslovakia to meet. her son and his family. °°. And this September, Amost came to Terrace where he met his grandmother, [rina Klukas, 93, and his sister, Irina, He also-met uncles. Emil and Rober, Aunt Lulse and their families. Amnost {8° ‘planning » a retur n trip and tis time vl ng his wife. kes “ Despite the end of the war, Eric stayed in Europe until December 1945. ““F knew I was getting him back, so I wasn’t worried then,”’ said Turner. Scottish, on the Queen Elizabeth ocean liner. He spent ‘Christmas Day on the ship and New - -Year’s Day 1946 on a train hack to B.C. Discharged after a ceremoiy in Victoria in January 1946, Eric took the long train journey back home. Turner waited at the train station for his arrival. “Tt was a night train and it was cold, He had his Glengarry (regimental hat) on. I thought it couldn’t be Eric. He was so thin — skin and bone,” said Turner. fs **There were tears, ‘Tears of happiness.” oe erhahs att geautyice ra 5 “T used to walk to work to save moan, said 4 Margaret. bands were either overseas or who had been killed. “We weren't the only ones alone. The whole world was separated, It was very much a women’s world. Out walk- ing, it was 50 women to one man,”’ said Margaret, She regularly visited the: offi ices 3 of the | ‘women’s amy corps. “I decided that if he’d get seit overseas, rd dj join up ‘and not be alone,”’ said Margaret af the Possibility of Curley ; being sent to Europe. Although the circumstances . of war brought Margaret a husband, it was also a time of loss. Her brother, John, was.in the Signal Corps and. was pasted to Hong Kong with the Winnipeg Grenadiers, When Hong Kong fell to the Japanese during, Christmas 1941, John was taken prisoner. He died in June 1942. The family sent John parcels via the Red Cross. “Our last parcel was retumed —--uaopened — after he died: Opening it was an ‘unpleasant task,’” said Margaret, One of her regular stops while in Ottawa was the Peace Tower. Located there was the Book of Remembrance. It contained the names of all of Canada’ s war dead and . every day, a page was tured. . : “T was always hoping to see his name and 11 never did. But I was always looking, looking,” said Margaret of her. brother. ; Curley was discharged from the army for medical rea- sons in 1944. The couple. returned to’ Terrace and have lived here ever since. - In 1993, the provincial , government named a waterfall. - after John Little. It’s located near Exstew, on the way to Prince ve Ruspert. aS . SPE SH AS | THE WORST fears of a mother came true in 1946 for Ema Schulze when she was separated from her - young son, Amost, in post-war Czechoslovakia, Ema. spent years.’ searching and this photo shows the ceniian they were S reunked in 1994, ; Josephine Pratt Sirens blared TO THIS DAY, Joscphine Pratt jumps at the sounds of sirens. They remind her: of the ones that blared in late 1944 when soldiers stationed in Terrace mutinied. Called Zombies, the soldiers were conscripted for domestic duty. As the Second World War went on and losses among those who volunteered for duty in Europe grew, the Zombies feared being | sent overseas. A rumour that overseas or- ders would be issued spread through the bases in Ter- race, The Zombies responded by parading downtown in full military gear and refus- ing to take orders from their > officers, Eric came back with his regiment, the Canadian” | “Tt was terrible, just ter- rible,”? recalls Pratt. ‘‘There _ were other soldiers with ma- - chineguns ‘on. the tops of buildings ‘downtown. The word was they were just waiting: for one-shot. It “would have been.awful.’” _ The mutiny ended without a_majorincident,- but it left an indelible mark on Pratt, a _ young girl: in: the. early 1940s, “-pywartime. ‘life i in: n Terrace are w Mivid: “and, Her memories of _ always Pleasant. ““T had to’ quit school in ~ Gmde™ 4. They'd: call_me “fdago’ and © ‘wop.' ° T was L ” She soon made friends with other women whose. hus-. . “tweated very badly." Those words" were: -in reference to: Pratt’s maiden name, Lofeudo, and- her Italian heritage. | ‘Everywhere you weni, they .. were ‘there. And: always with _. those bayonets.” ... Pratt’s dad was a Cana- dian National Railways sec- _ tion foreman, a job that took | him Gut of town frequently. Worried about’: ‘Josephine and his other daughters in a town full of soldicrs, the fa- _ ther installed a large lock on the front door of their home. “He'd say to my mother, ‘Keep a close eye on the *. girls. It’s bad-out there,’”’ But soldiers. would. visit because they were hungry. “Mom would feed them sandwiches. She’d hand ° them out of the door.”’ Pratt said the presence ‘of . soldiers. was constant in the tiny town. “Byerywhere. “you "went, they were there. And always with those bayonets.” The soldiers were also in- timidating to local people and, at times, threatening, _ On one occasion a group of soldiers confront Pratt’s father and another CN worker, accusing them . of being cowards for nat beitig in the amy. The mix of civilians and the military. had more serious consequences, =. Pratt recalls. that “one soldier was stabbed to death by a civillan in a fi ight over a girl, On another occasion, Pratt heard of a young woman . being raped by a. ‘Btoup of | Her happiest day of that period was the. day. the war!