THE BOY who WENT to WAR....

"A soldier fights, because he loves what is behind him...." -Gilbert K. Chesterton

Stuart ( with Jesse the dog),Isabella, Robert, Bill

                                     May 29th, 1940  Bethune, Saskatchewan homestead

Regarding: DIEPPE AUG 19, 1942

FROM Signaller S.S. Shiels HQ Company   South Saskatchewan Regiment  DATE: 23/9/42

 Dear Sis (Nessie, my mother):

     Received your airgraph re Sept 5. I am OK. Excuse writing as I am in a cast from hips to neck and out to fingers of right hand. Had one bullet just miss back bone, and go through seat about 5 inches deep. Another hit centre of right back but glanced up smashing shoulder and have a neat hole through     “humorous”. 

     I took a prisoner and fetched him back, after being shot up, so you can judge from that the injuries are slight. When we evacuated amid a hail of bullets, ,shrapnel and dive bombing we could see green waves of Jerry pouring in for miles back. The official score was 5000 dead and wounded for them, and 3350 dead and wounded and prisoners from us. Believe you me, they have a healthy respect for Canadians. Will write as soon as right wing is working.

                                                                Love, Stuart.

1930's Bethune farm

"A boy doesn't have to go to war, to be a hero..." -E.W. Howe

Mar 21 , 1934

Robert, Nessie, Stuart, Bill 1930's

"Courage isn't having the strength to go on. It is going on when you have strength..." 

-N. Bonaparte

Hunting gophers, 1930's Stuart /Bill

 

farmhands 1930's

Stuart, Isobel, Nessie, Bill (back)

Isabella (Jesse) Robert (front)

"Who trains my hands for war, and my fingers for battle..." 

                                  - Psalm 144::1 (Psalm of David)

Mar 21 1934 Stuart , ready to ride

Home on the range

"When you go to war as a boy, you have great illusion of immortality...."

-Ernest Hemingway

At rest after a long day's work...

May 29th, 1940

                   Stuart, Bill, Stuart's buddy with Jesse .....

"Courage is not the absence of fear.....it is something else mor important...."

- F.D. Roosevelt

Hitchin' a ride ......

.The long road to somewhere....

1941 Buddies. Not sure if any of the others came back from Dieppe......

Aldershot Barracks 1940...Ongoing poker game  24/7 while they waited to go overseas...

Bren gun carrier

       "The brave die never, though they sleep in dust....." -Minot Judson Savage

In Portobello Pub 1941.....

the Compound....

"Be strong of heart, and of good courage, nor be afraid of them...."- Deut 31:6

Stuart, as Signaler, with South Saskatchewan regiment..... 

From 1940's 

  written by E. Hilton Young (1879-1960)

My mother saved this from the Times Colonist (Victoria). 

Dec 31, 1911 (Bethune, Saskatchewan)-Feb 27, 1975 (Vancouver, B.C. Mt. View Cemetary)

Vintage family Photos, 2024

"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy..." -Martin Luther King Jr.

 

 

I MET YOU ONCE

“People will walk in and walk out of your life, but the one whose footstep made a long lasting impression is the one you should never allow to walk out.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson

Stuart, His buddy

I met you once.

Wind, sleet, hail, rain, snow.  November  you came. With your back pack and grey suit with the short tie.  

The days were dark. Like your eyes. You slept for days, in the downstairs room next to the Franklin stove ,which kept the place warm. My mother kept it stoked with wood the entire time. 

 You were  on your way back north.

To the place you called home, after the war. 

To the place where you had work. Good work.  

I met you once on that  stormy day, when the leaves were torn from the trees. You gathered maple leaves and put them in a glass for the table.

I didn’t know then how brave you were.

It was years later  I learned you were a wounded war hero.

So many years before on D day. How you lost most of your chums that day, but you carried on.

Life went on, but you were forlorn some days. Hungry. For more than just food.

My mother fed you. She comforted you

So damaged you had been. You couldn’t speak of the war, that time when I met you once. 

You were not young anymore.

You read to me. You told me fun stories  about princesses in castles and told me all  was right with the world. 

You told me to believe, that time  I met you once.

You gave me a watch.  I kept it for a very long time, till one day it broke. I kept the pieces in a box for many years.

You healed in time.

You wanted to go back to the farm. Back to home. Back to your roots.

But you had a job to go to. A place to be. So you left.

On another blustery day  spitting with snow.

I remember waving to you, as you left that  day, with your back pack and your grey suit.

You turned and waved. Like you had so many years ago on the farm. As you left for war.

We never saw you again. But I am so glad that I met you once……

 

Photographs 2022

                                                        Stuart, (Bill, Stuart's buddy, Jessie the dog) 1940
 

"HE DIED FOR MEN HE NEVER KNEW"

A BOY WAS BORN by E. Hilton Young 

(1879-1960) 

I found this old poem, a yellowed newspaper clipping ,with  a stash of old photographs in a beaten up shoebox in my mother's closet. Poem is considered to be a Christmas poem rather than Remembrance Day. Written around 1923.

 (The photographs are from  1890's up to 1943 and are family pics, for illustration only.

 They are not photos of E. Hilton Young )

1898 Grenadier guards Robert Woods

 A boy was born......

1890s

........... at Bethlehem

1910. Picnic

That knew the haunts of Galilee.

1912 Moorland school Bethune Saskatchewan

He wandered on Mount Lebanon

1914

And learned to love each forest tree

1890's Isabella Shiels

But I was born at Marlborough

Robert Shiels 1890

And love the homely faces there;

1910 Scottish homestead

And for all other men besides

'Tis little love I have to spare

1915 the war years

I should not mind to die for them,

1914-1919 WW1 memorial

My own dear downs, my comrades true,

1919

But that great heart of Bethlehem,

1920's new fangled plane air show

He died for men He never knew

Weddings 1920

And yet, I think,

At Golgotha,

Barn raising and plowing 1930

As his dear eyes

Robert  1930's

Were closed in death,

1941 Isobel, Isabella Shiels, Nessie ( mum) Jessie the dog.

They saw with love

1941 wartime holiday at the farm

Most passionate

1943 Yarrows Dockyard WW2

The village street at Nazareth.

1943 After Dieppe. Stuart bottom right.

Original newspaper clipping from collection of 1940's newspaper. My mother saved everything..........

*E. Hilton Young: Politician and writer. Served in the first world war enlisting in the Royal navy. Wrote his memoirs in 1920 "By Sea and Land". Entered politics in 1915 where he rose to fame. Retired from politics in 1935 where he was made Baron Kennet of the Dene. Returned to business  by 1940, heading up a ton of companies. Wrote "Memories" 1914-1919 (poetry).

Photographs 2020. Vintage family photos from 1898-1940's