104-year-old veteran saluted
Madeline Shavalier was a military nurse during Second World War
A 104-year-old Niagara Falls resident who served in the Second World War as a military nurse has been awarded an honorary lifetime membership in the Royal Canadian Naval Association Niagara Region.
Madeline Shavalier was recognized for her service during a Remembrance Day ceremony at Stamford Estates retirement home Thursday.
The association hosts a ceremony at the Portage Road home every year for people who can’t make it to the city’s annual Nov. 11 service at the Gale Centre.
Shavalier, born in Vankleek Hill, east of Ottawa, was 25 and a registered nurse at a children’s hospital in Montreal when she signed up with the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps at the height of the war.
“I put my name to be of some help when the soldiers came back from overseas,” she said.
“They were forming a new hospital and they called, that’s why I was called up. I had 48 hours to get ready to go overseas and notify my family. I had no time to go back home and say goodbye, I was 60 miles from Montreal.”
She served in England and Italy during her four-year overseas career.
In fall 1943, Shavalier’s medical unit boarded the S.S. Santa Elena and headed through the Strait of Gibraltar to deliver soldiers, medical staff and supplies to Italy.
Shavalier didn’t realize at the time she’d soon become a part of history.
On Nov. 6, 1943, the ship was torpedoed by a German aircraft and began to take on water.
The nurses climbed into lifeboats and the soldiers jumped into the water. After four harrowing hours in the dark, the S.S. Monterey rescued the 1,675 nurses and soldiers.
The operation became known as the world’s largest rescue at sea.
Shavalier said she lost all of her belongings.
“The only thing I missed was a toothbrush. I don’t know why, I guess I like a clean mouth,” she said.
After cheating death, Shavalier worked as a surgical nurse at a hospital set up at an abandoned tobacco factory near Rome.
She returned to Montreal in May 1945 and worked at a children’s hospital.
She met her husband, Howard, on a blind date while visiting a fellow nurse in Niagara Falls. The couple married in 1950 and, after raising two children, Shavalier returned to the
nursing field, this time at Greater Niagara General Hospital.
Shavalier, who is “very happy” living at Stamford Estates, said being named a lifetime member of the naval association came as a “complete surprise.”
“That was wonderful, I could hardly wait to tell my family.”
Asked about her secret to living such a long life, Shavalier said: “You eat your oatmeal porridge in the morning and you look after yourself.”
Sherri Patrick, who works as a bus driver at Stamford Estates, described Shavalier as a “oneof-a-kind” woman.
“She is the sweetest lady I have ever met in my entire life — never has a bad word to say about anybody,” she said.
Shavalier will turn 105 next month. — with files from Alison Langley Raymond.Spiteri @niagaradailies.com 905-225-1645 | @RaySpiteri