Eileen Jones never volunteered for military service, but the war found her in 1939.
Born in Ireland, Jones was 17 and training in England to become a nurse when the Second World War erupted that fall.
“That war … was hellish,” she said.
She explained the general hospital in Hove, on the southeast corner of England close to Brighton, received a few “close shaves” during raids by German bombers.
“The air sirens would go off and we’d all stiffen up,” said Jones. “You’d wait to see which direction the planes were going and then carry on.”
She recalls some damage to the rear section of the hospital and remembers piling sand bags to protect the building, but generally, the nurses were not in harm’s way.
However, the hospital was located close to where a large number of Canadians, along with some Australians and a few Polish men, were stationed and operated tank training.
The hospital also treated a lot of wounded Canadian soldiers, Jones explained, because there was no field hospital in the area.
“We got to know those Canadians fairly good,” she said.
She noted a lot of the nurses would go on dates with the Canadians, a majority of whom were from Western Canada.
She opined those men often saw action first, “because they were hardy and knew what living on the land was like and, quite possibly, because they were familiar with guns, living in the west.”
The Canadians would take the nurses in to Brighton for an evening of dancing or to a pub.
“It was a pretty lively place,” she said.
She recalled one winter the Canadians flooded a rink in Brighton and played a game of hockey.
“This was the first time we’d ever seen a hockey game,” she said with a smile. “We were delighted because we were not used to that.”
But it certainly was not all fun and games.
In addition to their civilian patients, the nurses cared for many sick and/or injured Canadian soldiers.
Jones gets emotional to this day when she tells the story of Edward White, a soldier from Peace River in northern Alberta.
The 21-year-old young man with blonde hair came into Jones’ ward one day after he was crushed by a tank during a training exercise.
Jones and two other nurses worked around the clock caring for White, but his kidneys failed and he went into septic shock. Specialists were brought in to help save White, and the nurses held his hand and said the rosary with him, but he died early one evening.
“It’s so hard to see young men die,” Jones said emotionally. “We couldn’t save poor Eddie White. He’d never see the Peace River again.”
Years later, worried White’s family might think he died alone, Jones wrote a letter to a Newspaper near White’s hometown, explaining that she and the other nurses were by the soldier’s side when he took his last breath.
Jones said White’s aunt called her to say the young man’s mother had heard about the letter and was comforted by it.
More recently, Jones had the chance to personally pass through the Peace River district, and she said she took a moment to remember White.
Another memorable patient Jones and her colleagues cared for during the war was a German pilot who bailed out of his crashing plane.
“The police took him to our hospital,” Jones recalled. “They had to have security watching him for a couple of days because they thought he may be attacked or strangled in the middle of the night (by an Allied soldier).”
The German’s leg was patched up and he was sent to a prisoner of war camp, she said.
Many Canadians repaid the kindness of the nurses by bringing in food. Jones particularly recalls one soldier bringing in a crate of bananas.
“After a year or two of war, you start running out of everything,” Jones said.
She explained everything had to be rationed, especially butter, and some items were hardly ever available, including coffee and chocolate.
“We rarely ever saw a roast or anything,” she said. “We lived on fish and chips, so help me, in England … that was our favourite thing.”
Not only was food scarce, but movements were restricted.
“There were always blackouts,” she said.
“Whenever you went out you had to take a gas mask and an identification card. You had to tell everyone where you were going and you needed a permit to go to London.”
But she realizes her sacrifices were nothing compared to those of the soldiers she met and treated.
“They never expected the war to be fought as hard as it was … A soldier’s life is a hard one,” she said.
“We were there to provide comfort to the Canadians. They were just young boys and we knew what they had to face.”
Jones remembers looking out the hospital window one night at about 1am and seeing a large contingent of Canadian soldiers marching up the street with their boots muffled to make less noise.
She found out later they were headed to the area of Dunkirk, France.
“A lot of them never came back,” she said solemnly.
In 1943 officials were rebuilding a hospital in Plymouth, England and Jones’ boyfriend Daniel, an experienced crane operator, was asked to help out.
Jones went along and worked in the Plymouth hospital for several years.
Needless to say, the end of the war in Europe in 1945 was a joyous occasion, but with it came the challenge of rebuilding and moving on.
Jones married Daniel in 1946 and decided to leave England one year later. They decided on Canada when Daniel found out there was likely work for him there.
“Our families were horrified we were going to Canada – it might as well have been Siberia [to them],” she said with a laugh.
“We left our family behind … I was crying and lonesome, but we left anyway.”
After a brief stop in Newfoundland, the couple arrived in Toronto in the middle of a summer heat wave.
“We thought it was beautiful,” she said of the city, noting she and Daniel saw Gone with the Wind at the theatre shortly after arriving.
“We just loved this country right from the very beginning,” Jones said.
They spent two years in Toronto before purchasing 20 acres near Streetsville. They moved to a 100-acre farm between Oakville and Milton shortly thereafter and spent the next 38 years there, raising five girls and two boys.
Jones said early on they did not have a lot of money and it took a while to build up their farm business, which specialized in Holstein cattle.
“We had a charmed life, really and truly,” she said with a smile.
In the mid to late 1970s the family relocated to a farm in former Eramosa Township, continuing to specialize in Holstein cattle, with their cows shipped all over the U.S. and into South America.
“We had a great time there,” Jones said of the family’s 18 years on the Eramosa farm. “I loved that farm … it reminded me of Ireland.”
The farm eventually transformed from a cattle operation to a horse stable.
“Nobody had any place to teach the kids [riding], so my husband took it on,” said Jones.
Sadly, in 2006 Daniel passed away. Two years later Jones sold the farm and moved to Elora, directly beside one of her daughters, where she still resides.
Contributing to her decision to maintain her own place – even now, into her 90s – was that Daniel had repeatedly stressed how important it was to always have a place for family to gather and to stay.
Each Nov. 11 she thinks of all the soldiers who gave their lives during WWII and other conflicts.
“War is terrible,” she said. “It ruins lives, it ruins families and it ruins countries.”
Jones also thinks of the soldiers – including veterans from more recent conflicts like the war in Afghanistan – who were lucky enough to survive, but have to deal with what they have seen and done.
“They’ve gone through too much and have seen desperate things,” she said.
Jones added most people today do not give Remembrance Day the attention it deserves.
“For most of them, it’s just something that happened in the past,” she said. But she likes to remind people that WWII was “a very close call” – and that should serve as a powerful reminder of why war should be avoided at all costs.
“War is a frightful carry on,” she said. “Look at the beautiful things we have and the great countries we have … what more could you want?”
