Letters from the front
Last year Lennoxville resident Margaret Owens shared a collection of letters written by her father who served in France during the First World War. He was corresponding with his mother Nina (Margaret’s grandmother).
Owen Norreys Harrington Owens was wounded twice, but survived the war and returned to Montreal after being discharged on Feb. 11, 1919.
He married and had four children; three sons and a daughter (Margaret Owens).
The letters are available on The Record website (www.sherbrookerecord.com).
Here are a few examples of Owens’ letters from the front.
Brunswick 20
Royal Canadian Dragoons, D Squadron
Korea, 1954-1955
A few words:
After his stint in Korea with D Squadron, Tom met and married Elizabeth "Betty" Langlois in 1959, and settled in Magog, Quebec to raise their family. They had two children together, their son Michael, and daughter Heather. Art was always Tom's passion, and he could entertain anyone, young or old, with a simple pencil and piece of paper. In the 1970s, Betty was an active member of the Magog Social and Curling Club, so Tom showed his support by creating posters for upcoming club bonspiels, most notably, the Blarney Bonspiel, held every March. Many of his Blarney posters vanished from Magog Curling Club, only to show up in other Curling Clubs around the Townships. In the 1980s, he brought life to Memphre, the mysterious monster that lives in Lake Memphremagog. A series of his Memphre cartoons were published in the Stanstead Journal during this time. In the 1990s he retired from Northern Telecom and took a more focused approach to his art, taking classes at Champlain College and joining the Lennoxville Art Group. He also joined the Cicuits des Arts in Magog and had some of his paintings displayed in various shows in the city. While no longer an active curler, Betty donated a few of Tom's paintings which now grace the walls of the Magog Curling Club. Tom passed away in December 2009 and Betty still resides in Magog.