Page 7 - The Halifax Explosion & Going to Siberia

ISSUE : Issue 34

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1983/8/1

(Besides making bandages, sending pack- ages--I wonder if there are other things the women who stayed at home were able to do, that made a difference in the war ef? fort. After a long pause:) Ethel MacDonald, Sydney: Well, I don't know. Of course, so many people were so much wrapped up in it anyway, there were not too many that weren't really affected by it. Now, my sis? ter-in-law's mother lost three sons. When she saw her clergyman--they were an Angli? can family--and when she saw her clergyman coming at a time of day when he wouldn't be likely to be coming just to make a vis? it, she felt that she knew why he was com? ing. And when she saw her clergyman coming like that the third time within not a very long time--he was coming to tell her that her third son wps gone. Three sons, and one after another, gone. When he came in, he just went over and knelt alongside of her, just knelt at her knee. And she knew then for sure why he had come. And she said, "Well, I suppose the Lord wouldn't have allowed it if he hadn't felt that I could bear it." It takes a strong faith to be able to meet it that way. And many years later, it was pathetic to see her. She was English, and she was a very, very lovely woman. She came one day over to my sister-in-law's, to my broth? er's home, and she said to her daughter, "You have little boys, haven't you?" And her daughter said, "Yes, yes." "Well," she said, "I came to see if my little boys might be playing with them." Price of war. We talk about the price of war. Whoever knows the whole price of war? The Halifax Explosion, & Going to Siberia Ken MacLeod, Baddeck: We were after taking a refresher course up in Wellington Bar? racks. In Halifax. And they were going to start calling in conscripts. There were a- bout 50 of us, instructors--we were sent up to the Armouries as the conscripts would be coming in, to start training them. And there were only a very few in the Ar? moury. And I was sitting up in my bunk that morning of the explosion--I was writ? ing a letter to my wife--and all of a sud? den, the crash came. It was all glass, up in the sleeping quarters. I was about 10 feet from the wall, and it just lifted me like that, till I hit the wall over on the other side, and I went down in a heap on the floor. I was knocked out for awhile. After I came to, the regimental sergeant- major had the bugler blow the "Fall in." There were only very few of us fell in there, probably about 50 men. They told us that the ammunition ship blew up, and that there were thousands of pounds of ammunition and gun cotton and everything else down under the ground at the magazine at Wellington Barracks. He FINDLAY OVAL Eligible for Grant of up to $800 Home Energy Audit Ltd. 653 George St., Sydney 539-5095 Island View Restaurant Manigo 756-3300 FULLY LICENSED Unique Year Round Dining Reasonable Prices Eel Dishes * Ethnic Favourites Seafood * Char-Broiled Steaks & Chops Daily Wild Game Special TRANS-CANADA HWY, WHYCOCOMAGH MICMAC INDIAN RESERVE (7)

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