Lillie Olga Randy Randa

I needed a change and I had never been outside of Saskatchewan, so I thought it was time to see what the world was like. It would be a time to be part of something and the country was at war, so you had to do something to help. I like figures and counting, and so that was why I was put into the [Royal Canadian Air Force Women’s Division] payroll, I think.

They had dances and different places we could go to. Yes, sometimes we traveled to other towns and we played ball, ball games and tried to play tennis and things like that. I guess just socialize with other girls. There were girls who were out for a good time, and others who sort of felt they had to do the right thing and live a good life. Yeah, it took all kinds. Some got into trouble, but I can’t say I did. I was always the kind, I had to do the right thing, which is funny as we think about it.

My friend and I used to go to a canteen in Calgary and the fellow who gave us hamburgers in the evening, he was in a bad mood. He said he had to perform an abortion the night before for somebody and he had only taken a little medical training, so that wasn’t something that… Well, he got away with it, but we kept quiet the whole … There were a few girls were lesbians, I think, and is it okay to mention that? And in [RCAF Station] Calgary, the girls sort of ignored them because they kept separate. But I always, when I went by, I’d say hi. So when I left, they said to me, thank you, you were the only one that was kind to us. I thought, well, they’re human beings, okay, maybe I don’t approve, but you still have to be kind to people.

At the time, we were young and we didn’t think about the dead as much or the tragedies because communication was not like today. And you didn’t hear about the different events until way after, whereas now, the minute somebody’s killed, you know it. You didn’t those days. It had to go through the channels. The correspondent would write up the stories and by the time you got them, it sort of lost its impact, I think.

We didn’t know what Hitler was doing. We didn’t know any of those terrible things, until it was afterwards that we learned. I think the fact that it opened your mind to, well, it broadened your mind because you traveled, you found out it was a world beyond your own little town. And I think it was good to, it was good as a learning experience.