Constance Jean Douglas (Primary Source)

Transcript

Then I was staying in a boarding house with many service people in it. Maybe men and a lot of women, C.W.A.C.s, the army girls. And they seemed to be having a good time and enjoying their life in the service so I thought, well, that’s a good idea. And my father had been in the First World War in the Princess Patricia’s and fought at Vimy Ridge. So I had, I guess I admired him for being in the service at that time. 

When I joined up I ended up being, I couldn’t get right into clerical right away. I went in as a wardroom assistant, WRA. And I was in that capacity in HMCS Peregrine for quite a few months. I was assistant to Commodore Brock for a few months there as his personal assistant. All I did was pack his suitcase and unpack it and send his clothes to the cleaners and things like that among some of my duties. 

I spent my first Christmas in Halifax away from home. Felt very sorry for myself. We went to see one show, White Christmas, about seven times. They finally let us in for nothing because we’d been there so many times. We were on duty for Christmas and then off for New Year’s but we didn’t have time to come home. Those that could get home for Christmas were allowed to go but we were so far away from Alberta. 

We were in the automotive building at CNE in Toronto. HMCS York was the automotive building on Lake Ontario. We had a goodtime there. We lived up in Rosedale I think it was in Toronto which was quite a wealthy neighbourhood. We had our sleeping, our barracks, I should say, were in one of these big homes there. And it was quite elaborate except for our bunk beds. 

The first night we got there and it was, the temperature was just 90 something and the humidity was high. And we checked in and then we didn’t have to be back to report there until the next morning. And so another girl and I decided, well, we could go to a movie downtown because it would be cool. And we went in in the afternoon and thought, oh, when we came out it’s going to be cool. It’s dark. Well, it was just like opening the oven door. We couldn’t believe how it could be so dark and so hot after coming from Calgary. 

We sometimes went out in whalers at lunchtime which were small boats, like, right on the beach on Lake Ontario. And would have to work, like, everything to get back in time for one o’clock. If the wind changed we had difficulty. But we had a lot of fun doing it.

The working conditions were, well, as great as we knew. We had typewriters and we had books and pencils, not calculators but adding machines, you know, where you punched it in and pulled the handle. 

We were respected by everyone. Yeah. I didn’t find any disrespect either from our superior officers or the other officers in charge. No. We were treated very well. 

I was in Toronto at, I have pictures of VE day in Toronto and we marched in that parade in August 15th, ’45 in Toronto.

Interviewer: What was that like?

It was, oh, very emotional. Very exciting. The crowds were unbelievably big. Going back though to the day war was declared, I was 13 and at home on the farm and my mother came running down to tell my dad and crying and saying war has broke out. I can see her yet come running down in her house dress, you know, and my dad was down in the farmyard and she was crying and calling to him