The Officers’ Mess in Calgary

 We live in an area in Calgary, called Currie. It is named after the barracks that were built in 1933 in the area to house members of the Canadian military.

During World War II members of the army and air force gathered for training and eventual posting to the theatres of battle around the world. Each service had their own area. The old map below shows the location of Currie Barracks in relation to adjacent communities in the 1940s and today from a Google satellite view. For reference the Officers’ Mess is labelled.

Left – Google satellite view of Currie area of southwest Calgary; right – portion of a street map of Calgary from 1946 with an insert of an air photo of Currie Barracks and a part of the Lincoln Park airfield, taken in 1949

My father was initially stationed here after he joined the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1943. My father-in-law enlisted in the Canadian Army here in 1941. A fuller version of the air photo taken in 1949 and other old photos, below, illustrate the style and extent of the military installations.

Left – LAC Bill Shepheard, 1942; Centre - air photo of Currie Barracks (top) and Currie Field, taken in 1948, RCAF Station Lincoln Park is at bottom right; Right – Sapper Bill McKay, 1942

Some of the barracks buildings adjacent to the parade square in 1941

Oblique air photo of Currie Field looking southeast toward the Glenmore Reservoir

This is how the Officers’ Mess building looks today.

Google image looking southeast of Officers’ Mess today in Currie; building has been renovated and is now called The Inn on Officers’ Garden

We have a personal connection with the Officers’ Mess, not because our fathers were officers. It is doubtful that either of them was ever in the building. During WWII, my mother-in-law, Jessie McKay, was the chief cook at the mess. It was a job she was very proud of and, from all reports, very good at. Certainly, in later life she was an excellent cook, one who brooked no nonsense in her kitchen and rarely asked for help in preparing meals.

In our family album there is one photo of Jessie taken with some of her staff in 1943. Unfortunately, the names of those pictured with her are not known.

Photo of some of the serving staff at the Officers’ Mess in Calgary, taken in 1943. Jessie McKay is at the right end.

In order to get to work every day, Jessie had to take a Calgary Municipal Railway streetcar from her home across the Bow River, in an area known as Hillhurst. The trip to work would have taken a considerable amount of time.

Jessie would have caught a streetcar on Kensington Road (#1 East and West Calgary line) near her home on the north side of the Bow River. That would have taken her across the Louise Bridge at 10^th Street NW into downtown where she would have transferred to another car to get to south Calgary and the barracks area. She may have taken the #6 Killarney or the #7 South Calgary line. Either route would have left her with several blocks to walk to get to and across the barracks lands to the Officers’ Mess.

At the time, Jessie and husband, Bill, had three young children at home who were cared for during the day by very generous neighbours. Will Bill overseas, it meant that Jessie had double-duty – cooking for the officers during the day and taking care of children at night.

Top – streetcar at intersection of Kensington Rd and 10^th Street NW; bottom same intersection today

Busses along either of these routes today can take up to 30 minutes. From the last stop on the “Marda Loop” at 34^th Avenue and 24^th Street SW, Jessie would likely have walked the remaining 12 blocks or so to the Officers’ Mess building. A similar walk from the end of the Killarney line would have been comparable.

Streetcar on South Calgary route #7 near Marda Loop

The whole daily commute must have been at least an hour in duration. And often she would have been carrying some groceries or other foodstuffs with her. Her days were long, and she frequently rode home at night in the dark, especially during the winter months.

Today the Officers’ Mess has been renovated and converted to a boutique hotel and eating establishment called The Inn on Officers’ Garden. Below are some views of some of the facilities (Sorry to sound like a travel review log).

This past weekend we celebrated my 75^th birthday with a very nice dinner in the Pub at The Inn on Officers’ Garden. I am sure Jessie would have been pleased with the fare, prepared in her old kitchen.

One thing left to do is to try to find out who were pictured with Jessie in that 1943 photo, and perhaps who else worked at the Officers’ Mess.

Remembrance in the Nuclear Age

 I am among the first group of people that were born in the nuclear Age. One of millions, of course, but a time like no other in the history of man.

This year marks the 75^th anniversary of the end of World War II. We have seen and read countless articles and news reports about the end of that conflict, and about the toll it took on societies and human life. We have seen the celebrations of not just its end but of the brave men and women who sacrificed their lives in causes to protect the freedoms we now enjoy.

I came into the world 106 days after a nuclear device had been deployed. That one single bomb, dropped by the US on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, killed over 140,000 people directly; thousands more died later from their injuries and from radiation-related illness. Three days after the Hiroshima blast, another bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, killing 80,000 more people.

That was a lot of people but only a very small proportion of those who died during the entire conflict. According to the History of Western Civilization II website, “World War II was the deadliest military conflict in history in terms of total dead, with some 75 million people casualties including military and civilians, or around 3% of the world’s population at the time.” Other estimates put the casualties at over 85 million people.

Past generations have witnessed wholesale destruction of human life with the introduction of what were sophisticated weapons for their times. Hand-held arms such as spears were in use 400,000 years ago; the bow and arrow dates back 20,000 years; swords and daggers made from metal were produced 5,000 years ago. A major invention that changed the way wars were fought was gunpowder – between the 9^th and 14^th centuries – and that led to the use of firearms, cannons, rockets and bombs. From then on, the weapons just got more advanced and deadly until we finally ended up with technologies that could destroy the world.

Conflict, it seems, has been a characteristic of the human family. According to a summary on the Wikipedia website, wars have taken the lives of over 540 million people just since the turn of the first century AD. Almost 40% of those were during the 20^th century. I am sure the list is not complete. No doubt millions more perished in prior centuries.

Battles between local tribes and larger civilizations have always been part of our makeup. What is amazing is that so many were killed before the introduction of weapons of mass destruction.

As genealogists, we spend a lot of time looking for our dead ancestors. Among them, we specifically search out records of members of the armed forces of their countries. While we can unravel the lives of many of those who fought, marvel at their bravery and honour those who died, we rarely can appreciate the vast numbers of people who died in and as a result of armed conflicts.

Rachel Bronson, President and CEO of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists stated clearly in an article written in 2015 what the Manhattan Project and work on atomic energy was about:

“. . . on July 16, 1945, scientists saw ‘the end of the world’—how one of those scientists’ descendants described to me the first ever-nuclear blast. Code-named Trinity, the blast occurred in a remote part of the New Mexico desert outside of Los Alamos National Laboratory. . . The goal for some of the scientists was to create a weapon so monstrous it would end major-power wars. And, in this, they accomplished their goal. For others the goal was to beat the Germans, an end that was reached independent of the creation of an atomic bomb. And for others still, the goal was to take science to its logical conclusion, releasing the enormous potential of nuclear power to achieve amazing advancements while controlling its dangers. . . Exactly three weeks after the Trinity test, Little Boy and Fat Man, the first and only two nuclear bombs to be dropped during wartime, were loaded into planes and dispatched not for Germany but for Japan to put an end to World War Two. . . Almost immediately, the scientists who had seen the end of the world began educating the public and policy leaders about the unprecedented destructiveness of nuclear weapons.”

We will still honour our soldier ancestors and remember their contributions to the freedoms we enjoy today. And hope that what began 75 years ago, in ending one of the most destructive wars ever experienced, will not result in the end of civilization.

Being part of the first generation of people born into the Nuclear Age is sobering. It is probably the most unique of all ages, when we realize that Armageddon could actually be achieved if we were not careful.

On this Remembrance Day, remember the past but have hope for the future.

If you cannot get out to buy a poppy this year, consider a donation to the Legion online. https://legion.ca/donations  

Virtual Genelaogical Assocaiton 2020 conference

 Don't forget the VGA conference coming up next weekend. To find out more details and register, go the VGA website. https://virtualgenealogy.org/annual-conference/