The day before yesterday a parcel arrived from my sister. As one would expect this time of year it contained Christmas presents, but it also held other precious things.
Earlier this year Michele and my dad had been searching for a letter from my Grandpa that I had been wanting. It was a letter he wrote home just after Vimy, telling them that he made it through "the big scrap" okay and that Stewart McNicol had been killed. They were unable to find it, but found others that I didn’t know exist, and they also found letters that my namesake, the other Clare Kines, had written to my Grandpa.
I grew up with the story about Clare’s death in Normandy, and it has become part of who I am. I’ve long known how he died, executed as a prisoner of war two days after D-day. I know about how he was captured, and how he, along with about forty others, were herded together on a road the next day and machine-gunned down, then buried in a common grave. I’ve read books on the incident, and even heard a recording of one of his comrades who escaped that day, one of only three to survive, describing what happened. But I now know that I knew nothing of who Clare was, what kind of man he was.
Late last night I read the letters he had written to my grandpa, read them aloud to Leah, and I now know something of the man whose name I bear. I know from reading them that he was someone I would have liked, someone who perhaps was somewhat like me. He was a man frustrated with the boredom of continual training and marching while they waited to join the war. A man who cared about family, and history, who looked up people my Grandpa knew in Wales during the Great War. A man who dreamed of flying, thinking of joining the RCAF, and who wondered about what the future would bring, who he would marry, whether he’d be able to take over the family farm when he got home from the war. He was tickled to receive a small piece of his horse team’s harness, and who could not wait to see his team of Greys again. He talked of Grandpa’s frustration at not being able to return to fight in this new scrap, and soothed those feelings by letting him know that men like him were also needed at home.
Just before I sat down to write this Hilary was on my lap. We were playing peekaboo, and every three or four peekaboos she’d pull my hands away, lean forward and give me a kiss. How I wish that Clare had survived the war, married, and was able to do that with a daughter of his own, and when she was older teach her how to handle a team of horses. Alas, war took that away from him, that future, much as it did so many other young men and women.
I learned something of my Grandpa also. One of the letters had a different tone than others, a certain fatalism crept into it. It was written just after his battalion had left the slaughter that was Passchendaele, about a week after his company had been heavily shelled, killing a number of them. It is a letter to his twin brothers on their birthday, and it gives me a glimpse into some of the pain he took with him from that terrible theatre. Just a glimpse though.
Here it is…
France, Nov. 14, 1917
Dear Twins.
Just a few lines today to let you know I have not forgotten your birthday. I haven’t had a chance to write lately as we have been shifting around so. Of course you would read all about it in the papers but I assure you we didn’t need the newspapers to tell us where we were. Still Louis & I were fortunate enough to come through it all again. Could I just tell you some of the things we done & seen you would be quite shocked I assure you! Some day if I am spared to see you all again I will give you a pretty good detailed description of our doings.
Nov/17. Now I hope this finds you all O.K. as it leaves me. We are in trousers once more and I am not altogether sorry to say goodbye to the kilts for the winter. Its a case of "Cold with the kilt" or "Kill’t with the cold". ByeBye now Lads. Love to all.
from your loving brother
Alvin
Comments
7 responses
Once more, very moving, Clare.
Thank you.
Jennifer
Thanks Jennifer
Great reading–fascinating, moving glimpses into what regular guys went through. You’re lucky to have these letters. So much, too much, of this kind of material gets thrown out over the years.
I was thinking the same as Pamela – so much of the past has been lost when papers get tossed out over time – so it’s great that you have the letters! I find that it’s nice to be able to see someone’s writing too. That’s something that is becoming less common as we increasingly abandon pens for keyboards.
I was thinking the same as Pamela – so much of the past has been lost when papers get tossed out over time – so it’s great that you have the letters! I find that it’s nice to be able to see someone’s writing too. That’s something that is becoming less common as we increasingly abandon pens for keyboards.
Man I am so far behind on replying to comments. Thanks Pamela and bev. I agree with you, that far too much of this gets thrown out, but then again I’m a packrat and probably have far too much stuff. I’m not sure if we have lost or gained as we exchange pens for computers. I think letter writing, in the age of telephones, was becoming something of a lost art, but that email has somewhat revived written communication. I was never really a letter writer, however have sent out thousands of email (which are kept BTW, albeit on the transient nature of a hard drive.)
Hi Clare, I just read your Sept 6/06 entry, mentioning Henry Larsen and my Dad trekking around King William Island in search of Franklin Expedition artifacts. Must be my approach to middle age that fuels my desire to know more about he and Larsen; I’d be interested in anyone that can remember back to 1945, that may have talked to him as well. Thanks,
Chris Biensch