Gladys Marjorie Sawchyn Irish

Gladys (née) Irish Sawchyn, from High Prairie, Alberta. And I was born July 22nd, 1925. My father was in the First World War and he was gassed and just creased across the top of his head, from a [piece of] shrapnel. And my brother was in the army and one in the navy. And I had five cousins in the army and three come back and two didn’t. After I got on the train, and I’m telling you, I don’t think even the boys in the frontline was as scared as I was. Never been out of High Prairie, got in to Edmonton and I’m telling you, I was just about ready to pass out because seeing all the people and oh, it was scary, I’m telling you, it was an experience of a lifetime. One-horse town and then get into Edmonton, oh. I tell you. They sent me to Calgary and that’s where I worked in the ordnance corps. Well, once a day, soldiers would come in and trade their uniforms for another one and shaving outfit and all that. So I was there and then on those days that we weren’t busy, I helped pack guns to ship overseas. They had me signed up to go overseas. And of course, I sent a wire to my mother and dad and my dad wrote in or whatever and told them I wasn’t old enough. That I was 16 when I’d joined up. I’d be 17 in a couple of months or something. You know you’ve got to be 18 to join up. So that’s all you had to say, they never asked for your birth certificate, nothing. Just okay, that was it. Most of the boys from High Prairie were 17. Yeah. So you just told them that and then tried to remember what you told them. At the time, I was very upset. But then, I thought, oh well, I went against them to join up, I’m not going to try anything this time. So that was it, I just let it go. They come and told us that it was over and that everything was over and that there’d be no more war, everybody will get ready to go back into civilian life. So then, we kept meeting at trains to see who was coming- that was our biggest joy of the day was going to the station and seeing who [was] coming home and that. And it was pretty scary to see them come home in a basket and all wounded and all of that. My husband -well, he wasn’t then, but we wrote and this and that and he come home in December of 1945 and in April 1946 we got married and that was it. Married for over 50 years when he passed away. He was there for five years, right at the front lines. He was a sniper. It was hard because when you come back, you don’t know half the people because they’ve moved away and the people your age would be gone someplace or whatever and it just seemed like you were lost because what were you going to do? Like my husband, I think mostly he was shell shocked, doing things. He got a job on the railroad and that, so it was hard. It was sad for a long time because you know, you’d be talking and right away, you’d mention somebody’s name and forget that they were gone. It was soon, not forgotten, but kind of wore off and you got used to it and now, on the 11th [of November], you think and you have your bad moments then.