GARY & MARIE...OUR LIFE IN QUEBEC!: Arthur Thomas Steward Part 3 (1960-1970)

loading the Austin aboard the Italia

When Dad left Europe in late 1959 for his new posting in Canada he shipped his car and his family together on a sea crossing that, according to his memory, is best left forgotten. We first took the ferry in Calais across to England one more time again and boarded an Italian passenger ship, the 21,000 ton MS Italia. Mom was getting to be an old hand at this way of life. The voyage across the Atlantic that winter was the most horrendous (in his words) he and my mother had ever experienced, although he remembers me and the rest of my siblings thoroughly enjoyed the rough crossing. . I can imagine what a rambunctious lot we must have been. Arriving in Halifax, Nova Scotia just before Christmas we brought in the new year of 1960 freezing in the back of an old Austin A55, wrapped in blankets and heading west across the United States, avoiding the cold Canadian prairies and Rocky Mountains. The new Highway Interstate System was still in its infancy then, only begun three years earlier under President Eisenhower, so it must have been a challenge for Dad to get across the continent in under two weeks. Crossing from Vancouver to Victoria on yet another ferry we made our way up the island to our new home for the next two years - CFB Comox.

The 'Italia'

CFB Comox was originally built as a British Commonwealth Air Training station in 1942 to guard against any possible Japanese threat to North America. It was used until the end of the war as a training squadron for Douglas Dakotas, then Lancasters, Neptunes and in later years the Canadair CP-107 Argus. But when Dad was there the planes of the day that I still remember flying overhead day and night were the 409 Squadron's Avro CF-100 Canuck, a twin engine all weather interceptor and the Canadair CT-33 Silver Star, the primary training aircraft.

CF-100 Canuck

CT-33 Silver Star

Comox, BC, Christmas Day, 1961

PMQ 103C, CFB Comox, British Columbia, 1962

We first lived in PMQs on the Base in PMQs before moving close by to an old house in the town of Courtenay across from the Courtenay River and a small inlet that we came to know as the Slough. It was here we befriended the local fishermen living in their houseboats and spent hours exploring along the riverbank. Dad taught me how to fish the river in Simms park for bullheads and occasionally he would take me hunting and fishing in the rugged Strathcona Provincial Park, a few hours away. We drove down to Victoria often and explored the small towns up and down the Island Highway, spending hours on the many beaches. It was a beautiful area to live in and grow up but, as usual in the military, we were soon uprooted again.

Me, PMQ 103C reading, my favorite pastime, 1961

Me and Lyn, Victoria, BC 1962

Dad and sons, CFB Comox, 1962

After less than two years Dad was on the move again and, surprisingly, it was back to Metz, France! Back in those days the Canadian government had no qualms about moving military personnel and their families back and forth with no regard for expense or the obvious disruption to the children's schooling. So we all said goodbye once more to the few true friends we had been able to make, took a memorable ride on the Canadian Pacific Scenic Dome train through the Rockies and to Ontario and boarded a Yukon aircraft back to Europe. This noisy four engine prop plane took ten hours to go from Trenton to Marville, France where we finally landed tired, hungry and wondering why we were back in France so soon after leaving. Dad headed back at work at the Chateau, in the teletype room and we headed back to finish another broken school year. Because the PMQs for the military personnel had yet to be completed we were housed in a trailer with a built on addition in the small village of Grigy, a few miles from the Headquarters where Dad worked. It was such a small place for a family of five that my brother and I used to shower with Dad in the gymnasium at the HQ every night. It got even more cramped when in May 1963 our youngest sister, Carolyn, was born at the RCAF Station Grostenquin (2 Wing), France, an hour away by car. The family was complete.

Canadair Sabre, Grostenquin, France, 1963

We were thrilled when we were able to move the next year to the newly built PMQs at the ruined remnants of Fort Bellecroix. It was here Richard and I spent our free time exploring the dangerous and scary deserted underground fortresses, often still littered with unexploded shells and bits of pieces from the last war. Metz was the most heavily fortified city in Europe during this conflict and not the safest place to bring up curious children. In the summer of 1964 Lyn and I began our school year in the new Lycée Géneral Navereau High School, named after the French military governor of Metz. Naturally as he did during his last tour Dad traveled quite a bit whenever he could, taking us around Europe with him, from the WW1 battlefields of France to the Adriatic Sea. At first we all piled into an underpowered VW microbus, then later in a much bigger baby blue '59 Ford Custom car he purchased from an American serviceman who became a good friend to the family.

Grigy Trailer Court, Grigy, France 1963-65

Canadian military cemetery, France, 1963, with new baby Carolyn

Mom, Dad, Dee, M. Perin. Metz, France 1964

Arromanche, France 1964

St Mark's Square, Venice, Italy 1964

After General DeGaulle's decision to discontinue Canadian and American NATO in 1966 Dad was transferred for a year to 4 Wing in Baden-Soellingen in the Black Forest of West Germany. This base was the home of the Canadair CF-104 Starfighter which we heard roaring overhead constantly. We enjoyed our year in this beautiful part of Europe and were sad to leave in the summer of 1967. And again, unbelievably, we were headed back to British Columbia! Before leaving Germany Dad bought a new car, a '67 Pontiac Tempest which he had shipped over to Canada. Once again we were to endure another long trek across the continent, this time in the hot summer month of July, driving and camping through the United States, before heading north to Vancouver.

Canadair CF-104 Starfighter

Mom with Carolyn and Diane, Pontiac Tempest, West Germany, 1967

Dad new posting was in Jericho Park, Vancouver and he settled the family into a small house in the town of Port Moody, just outside of Vancouver at the end of Burrard Inlet. It was a beautiful area and a short drive into the city and I spent a lot of time there between school and friends. Mom found work as a secretary at a local flying school in Pitt Meadows, buying herself a little Mini to go back and forth. After graduating from high school I worked at various jobs, bought a car and the following summer joined the Canadian Navy. Dad stayed in BC until 1969 when new orders came in. It was again going to be another major move for him and the rest of the family - all the way to New Brunswick in the east coast. He bought a truck and trailer and said goodbye to the west coast one more time. But he hated New Brunswick and the cold, snow and ugly blocks of brown ice piling up in the Petitcodiac River visible from their new home. He was desperately trying to get a transfer to Washington, DC, while Mom would have gladly returned to Vancouver! She hated Moncton as much as Dad and for two years never stopped complaining about the long, cold winters to me in her letters. Lyn meanwhile had met a USAF Lieutenant and was married in Virginia in 1970. For the past year Dad had been writing to his brother in Tampa and promised they would drive down and visit that summer and see if a move to the US would be possible. As it turned out Canadian Forces Station Coverdale would be his last posting. With word of the planned closure of the Station the following June and all personnel scheduled to be sent to Gander, Newfoundland as 770 Communications Research Squadron, Dad finally took up his brother Harry's advice, retired from the Canadian Forces and headed south to Florida. They crossed the border and said goodbye to Canada forever. It was August, 1971. gws