War brides to share memories

A local great-grandmother who came to Peterborough from her native London, England in 1946 as a war bride says she’s looking for other war brides or their descendants to join her for a special ceremony in September.

Yvonne Leahy, 92, said the Historical Society in Bethany wants to honour war brides and their descendants in a recognition ceremony on Sept. 9 at the Pontypool Community Centre.

“It’s a great honour – a wonderful honour,” she said.

Leahy says she knows of nine other war brides in the area who are still alive. They’re elderly, she said, and some are frail; of the nine, she thinks four would be well enough to make it to the ceremony in Pontypool.

But there may be others, she said, or they may have sons or daughters living in the area; she’d like them to be honoured alongside her.

“Maybe the relatives would come to receive the recognition for their mom,” she said.

Leahy met her husband, Joseph Leahy of Douro, when he was serving overseas; they were at a dance when they first spotted one another.

They fell in love and she later took the two-week voyage by boat from England to Canada.

Leahy says she still recalls getting off a train at the station in Peterborough – then located on Bethune St. – in March 1946.

“I had never seen so much snow in my life,” she said.

She’d taken the trip alone; her husband joined her about eight weeks later.

Later, when he got a job at the General Electric plant in Peterborough, they moved to a home in East City. The couple raised three children. Joseph died three years ago following a stroke.

Over the years the war brides got together often, Leahy said – they’d bonded over the common experience of having come to a new country as teenagers.

‘”We were all maybe 17, 18 or 19 years old – and we didn’t know how far away Canada was,” she said. “We clung to each other.”

NOTE: Anyone who is a war bride, knows one or is a descendant is welcome to call Yvonne

Leahy at 705-874-7037.