Dolores Kivi, a freelance writer based in Thunder Bay, writes with wonderful news that The Globe and Mail has accepted her essay “A Soldier’s Portrait” for publication in its “Facts and Arguments” section on Friday, May 7, 2010.
Says Dolores: “One should never hesitate to carry out a potentially kind deed even if it involves a bit of work. In 2005, with pending major surgery, I had realized that I had two photographs of Second World War soldiers – soldiers to whom I had written for several years but had never met either before or after the war. As a nurse I realized that no surgery is without risk and it seemed a shame for my children to probably be tossing out perfectly preserved (in my album) studio photographs because they meant nothing to them.
“With a lot of luck, because they had uncommon names for this area and because I knew the soldiers had originally come back to what is now Thunder Bay, I started searching for descendents. Both had stories to tell me but for one the story was exceptional and the photograph was – if I may be so bold as to say it – far more than the word ‘appreciated’ can convey.
“I wrote the first drafts of the story last year after I had spoken to the principal descendant, and received encouragement to write it; he saw the draft before submission.”
Former workshopper Dolores Kivi pens a weekly column for Thunder Bay’s The Chronicle-Journal for COPA (Council on Positive Aging). This will be her second “Facts and Arguments” essay. Read as well her essay “About Writing” (archived on this blog April 25, 2008) by clicking here: About Writing, by Dolores Kivi.
About the photo (above):
“I sent this particular snap to at least a half dozen of my soldier correspondents and they all liked it. Those soldiers included both my husband-to-be, Alf, and George LeSage. It was taken in late April or May of 1944 – when the fighting was nasty in Italy (that’s where the PPCLI were fighting then too and I wrote to at least three of them (whom I’d never met, but one was the other soldier who had sent me a studio photograph, as did Alf, from Italy.
“That spring I was a Nurses’ Aide at the Sanatorium – the San was rapidly being depleted of nurses as they joined the Armed Forces or went to fill vacancies in general hospitals. Our Supt. of Nurses put three Aides on nights and gave us caps (an honour those days). Imagine, I was still a few weeks shy of 18 and at nights, for three hours, I was the only female on two floors, an entire wing of the building, with 90 men patients. The rest of the time I was still alone (7-7 shift) but only with 45 men! The other two Aides had been there more than five years but for me it had been about seven months. And, before the night duty it was all days, on a women’s unit. Wartime – one grew up fast. . . .”
Editor’s Note: To read the online version, click essay title above, or here.