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Mrs. Beryl Winifred Gray (nee Cossey)- War Bride
Interviewed on December 30th

Beryl was born in 1916 in the small village of Parson Woodford in Norfolk, not too far from Norwich in eastern England. To this day, Beryl remains very close to her hometown: she has two pictures of locations in Norfolk hanging on her walls at home. Beryl's father, John Cossey, was a farmer. Most rural kids in those days did not continue with school past the age of fourteen. Beryl, however, was awarded a scholarship to attend high school in Norwich. To get to school, she had to ride her bike three miles to the train station and take the train to Norwich, then walk the twenty minutes to school. She attended Blyth Secondary School for Girls ("Be of Blyth spirit and spell it with a 'y'!") After graduating, Beryl went back to her village and lived with her family where she worked as a teacher and assistant in an elementary school.

Beryl's husband, Erwin (Ernie) Gray, originally from the same community as Beryl, had moved at the age of about 17 to Canada with his family. Beryl, though she was young at the time, can recall Ernie's father Weston coming to her family's home to say his farewells before leaving for Canada. Ernie joined the army, in part, so that he could go back to England, and it was only natural that he would visit Beryl's family when he had leave. Beryl can still clearly remember coming home from school one day to see him sitting at the piano in the parlor with his uniform on, but not his black beret.

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This is a photograph of Beryl Gray and her husband Ernie on their wedding day.
11 October 1943
United Kingdom

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Ernie was stationed in England for awhile, before leaving for France and the Mediterranean. He made a brief stop in North Africa, where his ship was bombed, and was in Italy for a while as well.

They were married on October 11, 1943. One Saturday morning Ernie sent a telegram to Beryl telling her to make arrangements for the wedding on Monday October 11, 1943. Beryl needed her father's permission to marry a Canadian soldier, even though she was twenty-seven years old at the time. She was the youngest of five children, and was always the spoiled one. Her father said signing his permission was almost equivalent to signing his death warrant. Beryl has always been fond of flowers, and greatly desired a nice bouquet for her wedding. However, since her wedding was in the fall and there was a war on, there weren't many flowers available: her bouquet was composed of chrysanthemums. The newlyweds honeymooned in Aldershot, an army base, for about a week. Ernie wrote regularly while away.

After the war ended, Ernie refused to live in England. He believed there weren't as many opportunities in England. Ernie returned to Canada first, in the fall of 1945. In May of 1946 she followed him and he met her in Calgary. When she got to the Oklahoma district, the area in which she has lived now for more than 60 years, it was Ernie's brother Ailwyn's birthday. There were many changes Beryl had to face: there was no bus to town (Innisfail), Hudson's Bay blankets weren't readily available locally, and the market was considerably farther. She was raised Anglican, but since there was only a Nazarene Church in the Oklahoma district she went there for a while. Beryl felt very isolated in her new community despite Ernie's relatives being fairly close at hand. She had Cossey relatives in the Innisfail area, and since the Cosseys' and the Grays' had intermarried for generations, they happened to be Ernie's relatives as well.

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A photograph of Beryl Gray receiving an award from the Innisfail Hospital Auxiliary.
2 December 2002
Innisfail, Alberta

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Beryl wrote her parents in England often, but did not return for a visit until 1959. She has lived in the same community, on the same piece of land, in the same house for more than sixty years. One of her sons now farms the land where she lives.