Lest We Forget: Hatter recalls growing up in time of war

By Gillian Slade on November 5, 2018.

gslade@medicinehatnews.com  @MHNGillianSlade

Born two months after Armistice Day, Evelyn Stall is close to celebrating her 100th birthday and says she was the baby to celebrate the end of the First World War.

Stall was born Jan. 15, 1919 and vividly remembers being asked by her Grade 3 teacher to talk about Armistice Day.

“The greatest holiday in the world, the end of the war,” said Stall, whose father was a Jewish farmer who had immigrated from Russia and settled in Moose Jaw.

From the age of nine or 10 Stall would read the daily newspaper to her father while having breakfast and grew up knowing that a soldier in uniform deserved respect.

In the days leading up to the Second World War she said she had a strong sense of responsibility to help in any way she could. There was the family business selling construction material including iron and cement — items that were in demand for the war and so supplies were under government control, she says.

There was also the excitement of foreign servicemen in town. Under the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan in Canada, a Service Flying Training School was established in Moose Jaw. It meant an influx of British airmen doing their training.

Stall would invite them to her home for supper. She remembers them being more formal than Canadians were and many became her friends.

“They were like family,” she said.

The airmen were concerned about the safety of their friends and family in England where bombs and air raids were a very real threat.

Accomplished in shorthand, Stall had somehow found a penpal in England who also knew shorthand. All their correspondence was done in shorthand until they were informed during the war that the censors found this unacceptable.

Canada sent food supplies to England and that meant luxuries such as a tin of salmon would never appear on a grocer’s shelf in Moose Jaw. They were kept under the counter for special customers.

Stall does not remember any mention of the Holocaust in English language newspapers at first.

“It came from the Israelite Press — a Jewish publication,” she said.

Her parents would talk in worried tones of family members still in Europe. Even before her father had left Russia he was aware of strong anti-Semitism.

Stall’s husband had come to Canada from Poland with the assistance of an uncle.

“My husband’s entire family in Poland was wiped out,” said Stall. “He had a nervous breakdown and never fully recovered.”

If there is a voice that epitomizes the Second World War it would have to be that of Sir Winston Churchill, British prime minister, says Stall.

“We hung on the radio to hear his voice because basically there was nobody else,” said Stall, who opens a diary to reveal one of Churchill’s quotes.

“Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees all others.”

Stall holds a steely gaze and adds, “That man was born to redeem civilization. We need another one now.”

See Tuesday’s Medicine Hat News for the second Remembrance Day story about someone growing up during the Second World War and her memories of the celebration at end.

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