TRANSCRIPTCD - Connie Duncan, interviewee / LR - Lyn Royce, interviewer
CD: Uh, that's a poster from Brantford; where Brantford, um, honours all veterans; we have dinners. So anyways, we were, we had to give our pictures in to...
LR: Okay...
CD: ...uh, the museum, so they made these up for our, uh, for us, and then we had them all over in Brantford.
LR: Okay; okay...
CD: And then, uh, they were hanging up, you know, in the armouries, on one of our dinners where we, uh, all the veterans received a flag.
LR: Okay. Alright. That's great.
CD: So you know, it's really Brantford really does things for the veterans and Stan, uh, Wykowski; he went across Canada and he's the gentleman that said, asked veterans to wear 2 poppies. The people would know to wear 2...
LR: Okay.
CD: Anybody with 2 poppies is a veteran.
LR: Is a veteran...
CD: And when you see somebody like that, you would think that.
LR: Ah, okay; very nice. That's a very nice, uh, remembrance. Okay...
CD: So, uh...
LR: And the picture is of you and your sister?
CD: Yeah.
LR: And you...
CD: My twin.
LR ...and your... Your twin. And you both signed up?
CD: Oh yes!
LR: Okay.
CD: Women weren't cos, conscripted!
LR: [laughs]
CD: I signed up in, um, Brantford.
LR: Okay.
CD: And I was working at Watrous and, well, it was a bad day for me; but my machines were running good, but I couldn't be there. So I got mad, so when I left there, and I come up Market Street, up the hill and I seen this great, big, sign 'JOIN THE... YOU... YOU ARE NEEDED! JOIN THE ARMY!' So I went and joined.
LR: Okay; alright, okay...
CD: So that's how I... and didn't realize what I had done until maybe, coupla months after, and then in come this letter from Ottawa. So my Grandmother says, 'Now what did you do!? What did you do now?!' [LR chuckles] 'I don't know.' I opened it, and here it was to report to Toronto.
LR: Ah!
CD: She says, 'That's what ya did.'
LR: That's what you did.
CD: So I joined and... come home and... got heck from my mother, 'cause I didn't tell what; see I was in Brantford, my mother was here in Hamilton.
LR: Okay.
CD: So come here; she was mad; but, pleased at the same time.
LR: Okay. It must have been a difficult thing to accept for your children, doing that; to sign up for, for that...
CD: Yeah; and my sister, she joined up here in Hamilton.
LR: Okay.
CD: With the Air Force.
LR: Okay.
CD: And then, uh, she joined up, and then she moved back to Brantford with my Grandmother.
LR: Okay.
CD: But my oldest brother, uh, he signed up; he was with the RHLI, and he went overseas...
LR: What's the RHLI?
CD: Royal Hamilton Light Infantry.
LR: Okay.
CD: And, uh, he went, um, overseas. Then, well, when he joined, I went to Brantford. And then I turned around and I joined and I went to Brantford. And then my sister joined, she went to Brantford [chuckling]. But, uh, my name is in the, um, book several places in Brantford, along with my picture, stating that I joined up.
LR: Okay. Now when did you join up, Connie?
CD: I joined up, uh, [19]'42.
LR: Okay. And what was it, what was it like: what kind of training did you get; what did you wind up doing?
CD: Uh... I ended up working with guns. Uh, I was handy with tools and that. So they sent me here to, um, the trade school, which was on Kenilworth Avenue [Hamilton] North. And I was there for 3 months training with the tools to do different things.
LR: Okay...
CD: Then when I went back to Toronto, they shipped me to the, um, depot at Bay [Street] and Fleet [Street, Toronto] which is the Air Canada Centre now. [chuckles]
LR: Okay. Alright. [AD coughs in background]
CD: And we used to march along the Gardiner; not the Expressway, but the, down below...
LR: Okay...
CD: ...Lakeshore Road . Uh, every morning with the men; we all had to fall in, and that's where I worked with guns. Overhauling them; checking them out; doing this part, fixin' that...
LR: Wow... Was... Was that an unusual assignment for a woman? Or were there a lot of you doing it?
CD: No, there, there was Isabel, the girl that's with me in that picture, and uh, Isabel, uh, Isabel and, um... Bunny.
LR: Okay.
CD: And they were from Brantford too.
LR: Okay. And that's... And were you all mechanically inclined? Or...
CD: Uh, No, not really. It's just your skills when you go in; you know, how you make out a form, 'n 'what are you good, 'n blah, blah, blah.
LR: Okay.
CD: And, uh, that's what it was.
LR: Okay. Alright. And, and how long were you doing that for?
CD: All the time I was in the army.
LR: The whole time. So you were stationed in Toronto the whole time?
CD: Uh, no...
LR: Okay.
CD: I was in Toronto; I came to Hamilton; I went back to Toronto. Oh, I was to Kitchener; before all this, to Kitchener and then, uh, I went to Ottawa.
LR: Okay.
CD: And I ended up in Ottawa.
LR: Okay, alright.
CD: Then the war broke out; then I signed up for Japan.
LR: Ah!
CD: And I was on my embarkation leave, and I was to go back and, uh, supposed to leave, on the Tuesday, but the war ended.
LR: So you never got to Japan. [CD chuckles] |
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