Rex Arnett was born November 12, 1924 in Toronto. He grew up in the city’s east end, in the Danforth-Woodbine neighbourhood. Rex and his friends kept busy playing all kinds of sports, and against the backdrop of the Great Depression Rex worked as a delivery boy for a local drugstore. He was attending De La […]
Raymond Corbett was born September 3, 1934 in Bass River, Nova Scotia. He grew up in that small community against the backdrop of the Second World War, where he attended school and church and did all the things that were normal in small town Canada at the time. Ray left school in Grade 10, and […]
Reginald “Crash” Harrison was born August 16, 1922 in Pheasant Forks, Saskatchewan, not too far from Regina. Reg’s parents had come to Canada from Yorkshire not long before the Great War, and Reg’s father returned to Europe as part of the Canadian Expeditionary Force to fight alongside his brothers still in England. He came back […]
Welby “Ike” Isaacs was born January 20, 1939; he grew up on the Six Nations reserve in southwestern Ontario, where he was raised by his grandmother. She died when Ike was 16, and neighbours took him in, allowing Ike to avoid the fate that would have awaited him otherwise – a residential school. Ike didn’t […]
John Foy was born October 12, 1925 in Rochester, New York. He grew up there against the backdrop of the Great Depression, in a large family of ten children where four of the brothers would serve during the war. In the 30s John went to school and did all the normal things for a teenager […]
Robert “Boots” Chouinard was born December 21, 1923 in Newburyport, Massachusetts. He was the youngest of 8 children. His father was employed in a paper mill and as a barber. Robert attended various schools, including Massanutten Military Academy in Woodstock, Virginia, where he played football on a scholarship. He said that he went from being […]
Henry Sienkiewicz was born January 4, 1923 in Syracuse, New York. He grew up in a working class neighborhood, where his father worked in the local foundry. Henry worked a variety of jobs himself in the prewar years, helping the family to make ends meet during the Great Depression. When the war came Henry knew […]
Bob Fischer was born July 14, 1926 in West Allis, Wisconsin. He grew up in that industrial town in a family with five siblings including a twin brother, and he attended Catholic school – all while the Great Depression was unfolding. Bob does remember good times from that decade, but he also remembers working – […]
Henry Beissel was born April 12, 1929 in Germany. It was a period where Germany was still struggling to recover from the punitive terms of the Treaty of Versailles, which were at the time of Henry’s birth coupled with the impacts of the Great Depression. Henry grew up in Nippes, near Cologne; both parents were […]
Jozef Palimaka was born May 9, 1926, in Czaple Male, a village not too far from Krakow, Poland. His parents had a small farm there, though they made the decision to relocate to Czarne Konce, near Lviv, a few years later, when they purchased a larger farm with an orchard. As Jozef was the oldest […]
Nick Borisko was born December 10, 1925 in the little village of Hubbard, Saskatchewan. He grew up in that very small community, the third of eight children of immigrants from the Ukraine who had left the Austro-Hungarian Empire looking for a better life. His father was a farmer, and although the family grew up in […]
Wolfram Forster was born October 22, 1925, in Berlin, Germany. He grew up in that city during the interwar years, witnessing the political changes that were taking place around him as he attended school. Wolfram’s father was a Great War veteran who became a police officer, and who later fired when he refused to join […]
Katherine McIntyre was born May 20, 1923 in Toronto. She grew up in the Forest Hill neighbourhood, where she was lucky to grow up in an affluent family. Her father was a well-known lawyer, and the family was able to avoid the worst aspects of the Great Depression. Katherine attended Bishop Strachan School, and after […]
Chris Snider was born March 19, 1932 in Sunbury, Pennsylvania. His parents were Canadian but were living in the U.S. at the time, and as the 1930s unfolded they moved a few more times, eventually landing in Oakville, Ontario. The realities of the Great Depression had kept them on the move, as Chris’s father looked […]
Ray Amelio was born August 5, 1945 in Pittsburgh. He enjoyed what he remembers as the idyllic life of 1950s America, though he was aware of the Cold War and the ever present danger. Still, playing in the street and early television counterbalanced those concerns. Ray was attending Duquesne University, where he was struggling to […]
Allen Tucker was born July 14, 1951 in Mound Bayou, Mississippi. He grew up in a large farm family there, dealing with the realities of the Jim Crow South. Allen recalls that the family did not go into town often, so the principal segregation the children encountered was at school. He also remembers working on […]
Mervyn Kersh was born December 20, 1924 in South London. He grew up with two older siblings in a middle class Jewish family in the neighbourhood of Brixton; he experienced significant anti-Semitism at school, until his parents moved him to a Jewish school. They also enrolled him in the Jewish Lads’ Brigade, and Mervyn too […]
Stephen Foreman was born August 3, 1946; he grew up near Pittsburgh, in the small town of Jefferson, Pennsylvania. Life was good in that small, racially-mixed town; Stephen’s father worked at the steel mill, and the family raised its own chickens. Stephen was a boy scout, and later played football and other sports in high […]
Becky Sprecher was born in 1950 in Hopkinsville, Kentucky – the Baby Boom had begun. Becky remembers her elementary school teachers saying on the first day of school, “I’ve never had a class this big!” There were certain advantages in small town America in those days in that the kids could ride their bikes just […]
Tom Boneham was born March 21, 1923 in Warwickshire, England, where he grew up on a farm in the village of Shotteswell in the Stratford-upon-Avon district, not too far from the town of Banbury. His father Tom worked that farm with Tom’s mother Hilda; the two of them had met after Tom’s father was discharged […]
Carl Zipperer was born on May 4, 1950 in Savannah. He grew up in that part of Georgia, and most of his early years were spent in the country on the family farm. Carl learned to be self-reliant there, a character trait that would serve him well in future years. Coming out of high school, […]
Keith Miller was born March 11, 1946 in Pittsburgh. He grew up in small town America in the 1950s, enjoying what life had to offer, from TV to baseball to playing in the street. It was also the time of the Cold War, and Keith remembers that his childhood was also interrupted by “duck and […]
Rick Claggett was born March 19, 1947, not too far from Philadelphia. Rick grew up against the backdrop of the “Fabulous 50s” – and the Cold War. By his account he lived a good life, enjoying the outdoor life and just being a child in postwar America. Vietnam entered the American consciousness in 1964-65; initially […]
Edwin Cottrell was born January 17, 1922 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. His parents moved to Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania the next year though, and that is where he grew up. Edwin remembers a good childhood – and one where he played all kinds of sports. His father – a Great War veteran – worked at the […]
Larry Woods was born December 17, 1947 in Pittsburgh. Larry grew up there against the backdrop of the 1950s, which he remembers as an idyllic time. His father worked in a steel mill, supporting Larry and his many siblings as best he could. Life in the 50s was good, and Larry recalls games with his […]
Wally King was born October 31, 1923 in Cortland, Ohio. He grew up in that rural part of the Buckeye state, not too far from the Pennsylvania border. Wally recalls a pretty normal childhood, growing up against the backdrop of the 1920s and the Great Depression 1930s. His father had two sons from his first […]
Warren Goss was born February 9, 1925 in Glenshaw, Pennsylvania, where he grew up in a large farm family. He grew up against the backdrop of the Great Depression, working around the farm and delivering papers and being a Boy Scout. When the attack on Pearl Harbor happened, Warren recalls selling many newspapers – and […]
Frank Mayer was born January 22, 1927 in Pittsburgh’s 27th Ward. His father was a First World War veteran who died when Frank was just seven, so Frank grew up in the care of his mother, grandparents and uncles. He remembers growing up against the backdrop of the Great Depression and the early years of […]
Durwood Williams was born November 24, 1921 in Godwin, North Carolina. He grew up in that state, playing on the banks of the Cape Fear River, and looking for lost Confederate treasures. The Great Depression impacted Durwood’s family; his father went to Fayetteville to work, and Durwood had to work his way through college. He […]
Jack Byrne was born March 13, 1925 in Sydney, Nova Scotia. His parents had to come to Canada – from Newfoundland – just before his birth. Jack grew up in the Whitney Pier area of Sydney, and he remembers it fondly. When he saw footage of the Russo-Finnish Winter War, he was motivated to join […]