VETERAN’S LAST DAY ON THE JOB WAS ALSO HIS LAST DAY
A collision took his life, but his love endures, writes Tom New.
Each year, a ceremony on Parliament Hill honours police and peace officers who have died in the line of duty. At Sunday’s Police and Peace Officers’ National Memorial Day observation, customs officer Percy New will be one of the historical officers added to the honour roll. He died on his last day of work as a customs officer at the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor.
On Jan. 20, 1954, the day of his scheduled retirement, Percy went to work as usual. Then, as now, the Ambassador Bridge was the busiest border crossing between Canada and the United States. On his last day on the job, Percy was to inspect and clear transport trucks coming into Windsor from Detroit.
Because it was his last day, he had a note in his pocket, a goodbye message he had laboured over leading up to his final shift. He was looking forward to retirement with his wife of 33 years. They had planned a trip to Florida, a first for the couple. He would also get to spend more time with his new grandchildren and become even more involved with his church.
After clearing a truck for entry into Canada on his last day, Percy and a co-worker were walking across the apron of the Ambassador Bridge customs compound when another truck struck them. The other officer was slightly injured. Percy was killed instantly. The gifts that his co-workers bought for his retirement were instead given to his widow. The note that he had prepared to read at his farewell party was instead read at his funeral.
Ultimately, Percy had a good life. Born into privation, he survived trench warfare as a soldier, raised a young family through the Depression, and settled into the Windsor community as a husband, father and steward at Giles Boulevard United Church.
Percy was born into the grime of industrial North London in 1888, the youngest of five children. From the getgo, his life wasn’t easy. His father died of typhoid fever when Percy was three years old, and his mother Mary, who was in poor health, struggled to feed and house the family while working as a domestic. When a charity visited the household, they found Mary and her family “looking ill and badly in need of food.”
Widowed and living in squalor, Percy’s mother surrendered him to the custody of the charity, Dr. Barnardo’s Homes. In turn-of-the-century Britain, any social safety net consisted of the goodness of the community at large. Dr. Barnardo’s Homes had been established to rescue poor children from a life of poverty and hard labour. When they were old enough, the children were sent into the English countryside — or, often, to Canada — to give them a chance at a better life. That better life had not yet arrived for Percy. At the age of four, he was placed in the St. Joseph and St. Anne Orphanage.
When he was 12, Percy was sent to far-off Canada to work as an apprentice farmhand. It was an unhappy trip, and an unhappy situation. His first placement was with a family that took the term “indentured servitude” quite literally. Years later, and only once, he would tell his daughter about the nighttime tears and abject loneliness he felt when he arrived in Canada. Eventually, he was placed with the Newell family in Springfield, Ont., and for the first time in his life, he thrived in an atmosphere of love and support. He began work as a machinist, first in southern Ontario, then in the rapidly expanding industrial engine that was Henry Ford’s Detroit.
In 1917, Percy enlisted in Amherstburg with the 63rd Battery of the Canadian Expeditionary Force. It was back to Europe, where he fought as a gunner in what was then called the Great War. When he returned to his adopted country in 1919, he settled in Walkerville. He met and married Muriel Bowman, and together they raised three kids in a stable, loving household on Elsmere Avenue. He was quietly determined to provide for his children the kind of home he didn’t have as a child. His kids were raised through the Depression without a lot of extras, but according to daughter Dorothy, “We didn’t know we were poor.”
The children went their own ways as adults, but in the weeks before Percy’s death, each managed a final, serendipitous visit with their father. His two daughters, June and Dorothy, visited the family home days before his death. His son Foster, an officer in the Royal Canadian Air Force, had just visited Windsor before he left for an overseas posting in Germany. In fact, when his scheduled departure was unexpectedly delayed, Foster had been able to spend a few extra last hours with his father before leaving for Europe.
My grandfather was buried in Victoria Memorial Park Cemetery on Jan. 23, 1954. The goodbye note he had written was placed in his suit pocket, so that his farewell message to friends and coworkers would be close to his heart. The last lines of the note were printed in The Windsor Star in its coverage of his funeral: “So with the parting of the ways, may I wish you all long life, good health and happiness.”
Percy’s wife Muriel joined him on Aug. 1, 1990.
Born into privation, (Percy) survived trench warfare as a soldier, raised a young family through the Depression, and settled into the Windsor community as a husband, father and steward (at church).