“The RoseBouquet”

When Remembrance Day comes around each November, our family has always treated it very low-key. I think it’s because we are rather confused about what to do with it. On the one hand we know that Mennonites are known to be pacifists in their faith. We’ve heard it all our lives, and yet, I don’t recall getting any in-depth teaching about it as I grew up. I learned more from my reading after I was an adult than I learned from my parents or church in my childhood.

But there’s another factor. Our family for three generations has had someone sign up to be a soldier. This seems to have messed up our pacifist thinking in each of those three generations. This is all on my mother’s side of the family. On Dad’s side he had a brother who went to war. Uncle George was conscripted. Uncle Johnny became a Conscientious Objector. I have some photos from his time in the work camps in B.C., but no hard and fast details. Dad was away working on a farm/ranch when the conscription officer came, and escaped having to join or make a decision, for which he was always grateful.

Let me profile the ones on Mom’s side, since I know the most about those stories.

First there was my maternal great-uncle, Peter Kroeker. Gran’pa Kroeker’s younger brother left home and signed up as a Canadian soldier in the second world war. He was stationed in England. Beyond that I know nothing of his service, where, when, etc. But I have seen this letter in 1942, which my grandmother had in her possession. (It may have first come to his parents).

Dear Folks,
I am well and happy and hope this writing finds you all the same. I hope you will all forgive me for not writing sooner. I have received so many letters, cards and parcels, and I am very sorry I have not written before this. and I can’t thank you folks enough for all this kindness and love you have shown me by writing and sending parcels.

And now that I am out of the kitchen I will try and write oftener. I hope you won’t laugh at what I am going to tell you next. Now just take a guess while you turn this page.

_____over________
I got married on the 17th of Jan. 1942 to a Miss Lillian Alice Baker, from London. I won’t describe her now, but I can tell you that I think she is all right and I have not changed my mind yet.

[This article got too long for here. You can read it in full on my family genealogy site; Our Family’s Solders ]