Series 0259.01 - Grace Thomson

Grace Pamela Miller's early life was spent in St. Mary's Waif and Stray Home, an orphanage run by the Church of England. She never saw her mother but knew she had TB and was confined to hospital. At fourteen, she left school and worked at cleaning jobs in the Home and at sixteen she went into domestic service. She had been so used to bells, she didn't know how to tell time so had to teach herself. She was given a maid's uniform, the cost of which came out of her pay along with the cost of any breakage. She joined the Girls Friendly Society which allowed her to spend holidays at the seaside. She later worked in the Cane Hill Hospital on the domestic staff and that is where she met her Englsh soldier, Joe. Joe had been to Canada with his father in 1919 and had come back with the Canadian army during WW11. She and Joe married in 1941 and their daughter, Sheila, was born in 1942. Since Joe was still in service, Grace stayed with the Swindon family until the war ended. Joe went back to Canada and Grace went to London to get their papers in order so she and Sheila, now 4, could come to Canada. They sailed on th Queen Mary on June 5,1946, and arrived in St. Walberg, Saskatchewan where she was greeted by Joe and others. A ladies group from the United Church gave her two cups and saucers and a mirror. She was overwhelmed by the kindness of her new neighbors. Her new life was all too much to take in at first, kind of like a dream world. The first fall, she canned everything she could think of as she thought there would be no fresh food available in the winter. When winter came, she found even at -60' the stores still had plenty of food. She made many good friends, ones she still writes to. Joe worked for a dray company delivering coal and other goods. Three years later they moved to Saskatoon where Grace was active in the Anglican Church (the women’s group, Sunday school teacher, and Brownie leader.)

In 1971, after Joe died, Grace moved to Grande Prairie to be near her daughter who was expecting her first baby. Here she made new friends easily by becoming involved for twenty years in choir and theatre groups.