Here’s the story of how my family got here

Re: How we got here, June 30.

I read Bruce Deachman’s column, and I have a story I wish to share about my family. It all starts with my grandfather Albert (Anselme) Hebert when he ran away as a very young man from the family farm in Casselman, Ontario, at the start of the First World War. He ended up in France, where he met and married my French grandmother. In 1921, by then parents to my father Jean (Gerard) Hebert, they arrived in Canada — Montreal, to be precise.

In 1941 the Second World War, my father, a navigator in the Royal Canadian Air Force, was based in Scotland. He met my mother Isabel Hunter Watson McCluskie, who also worked at the base driving the personnel to their planes. They eventually married and produced first my sister, then me. After the war, my father returned to Montreal with the squadron.

On April 3 1946, my mother arrived in Halifax with her two daughters in tow. This was the first time my mother, the Scottish lady, had left her country. We arrived on the ship SS Letitia and then we all boarded a train to Montreal to meet my father.

We were all considered landed immigrants, and have the certificates to that effect.

Four years later, my father was posted to the Canadian Embassy in Brussels, Belgium, and we all got Canadian passports. From Belgium it was an easy transport to Scotland and France, which enabled us to visit all our foreign relatives. To this day we visit and communicate regularly.

Last week my son acquired a poster to give to me in reminiscence of my entrance to Canada. Lorraine (Hebert) Joly, Orléans