Following in his footsteps
Yarmouth family of Second World War veteran taking part in anniversary pilgrimage to honour veterans
He’s surely smiling from heaven.
Nine family members of the late Staley Goodwin will do him proud in the Netherlands this spring as they set out on a 60-kilometre pilgrimage, following routes taken by Canadian troops.
His eldest daughter, Shelley Goodwin, says it took less than four hours, after they found out about the April 29 to May 11 event, for the discussion to move from “Let’s talk about it,” to “We’re going!”
In Our Fathers' Footsteps is a spiritual, cultural and educational event that takes place over three days along the routes of the Canadian liberators – together with “heartfelt commemorations and joyful festivities” at Apeldoorn. This year’s event coincides with the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Netherlands.
War memories were something Staley, who lived in Yarmouth County, usually preferred not to talk about.
But one day, when Shelley was home studying for exams, the floodgates opened.
He was 16 when he fibbed about his age and enlisted. After basic training he was sent to Camp Dundurn in Saskatchewan for wireless training, then deployed to Sicily.
After Sicily, he moved north into Italy with the 4th Princess Louise Dragoon Guards. In
Italy, his regiment was transferred to the 12th Infantry Brigade, 5th Canadian Armoured Division, and he served in an infantry role. Because of his wireless training, Staley was deployed to the New Brunswick Hussars as a wireless operator in the tank regiment.
This was a time that he rarely talked about.
Shelley recalls him telling her of how German infantry tied their boots in a different way than allied infantry. It was an important distinction. He once spoke about how he had woken up on a pitch-black night in a trench close to the lines and felt someone touching his boot laces. He remembers hoping fervently that he had them laced the right way.
Information about the war and its progress was often limited and censored. Staley described the progress as often slow.
For the tanks, there was always another hill, another valley and another mountain as they pushed against the German defences.
He described one particular assault where “800 guns opened fire at night. It was so bright you could read a newspaper.”
Continuing to move north into the Netherlands, Staley spent some time in Nijmegen, where he met a young petite girl called ‘Tiny’ Robrback. She called him Slim.
She brought Staley and his friend to her family for coffee – the only thing they had in their home to offer visitors.
The enlisted officers took the family under their wing, bringing them food and other items, including wool socks that Mrs. Rohrbach unravelled to make hats, gloves and sweaters.
Before Staley left for home at the end of the war, he gave Herman, Tiny’s brother, his uniform jacket. He recognized the desperate need that many were in after years of Nazi occupation.
After flying back to Canada in January 1946, and when back in Yarmouth, Staley walked the eight kilometres to Pembroke and was greeted by his smiling family in their Sunday best. In the years following, he married Florence Bain and they had three daughters.
During a visit back to Holland in 1985 for the commemoration of D-Day, Staley and Florence went back to Nijmegen to see if they could find Tiny. They tracked down the house where Tiny had lived but found it filled with university students and being used as a fraternity house.
Their host, Willemena (Willi) Koreman, contacted the mayor, who was able to track down Herman. He told them Tiny was living in Switzerland. Florence and Staley planned on visiting that country afterwards and met her in a tearful reunion.
“It was quite healing for dad to make all these connections,” says Shelley.
Staley learned Herman wore his old jacket for five years, until the elbows wore through. Herman eventually became an electrical engineer after the war.
Willi and her daughter Angela became close friends of the Goodwins and they visited each other many times. Each Christmas, packages arrived from Herman and Tiny. Willy would send tulip bulbs, which were planted in the Goodwin gardens.
Staley passed away in 2010 but lives on in the memories and love of his family and Dutch friends.
Florence, 83, is excited about taking part in this year’s pilgrimage. “I might be the oldest one there,” she says, adding with a chuckle, “We’ll likely be the biggest family there.”
Being able to see her Dutch “family” again is the “icing on the cake.”
Although daughter Heather Hatfield can’t go on the pilgrimage, she’s organized a similar memorial march in Yarmouth.
Staley’s arrival home in Pembroke was such a heart-touching event, one of his brothers talked about the sight for years afterwards.
“Charlie always talked about that,” says Heather. “He said, ‘I can never get that out of my head, him walking up the road and all of us standing there waiting.’”
So that’s what she decided to do.
She’ll be walking, joined by others, from where the Yarmouth train station used to be all the way to Pembroke, on one of the days that the rest of her family are on the pilgrimage.
“It will be in our father’s footsteps, but a Yarmouth rendition,” she says.