 Well, we grew up on a farm, number one. In the summertime, we'd walk to school, about two miles, and in the wintertime was a different story. We were driven by my father with sleigh blocks and a couple of horses leaning, and my father would be all frosted over with his breathing. So when he'd get us to school and we were safe, then he'd go back home and be there again in the afternoon to pick us up when school was finished. My mother was a city girl, so it was very difficult for her, too, and so she had mattresses made for the sleigh blocks, and we were all dress winter-like with quilts all around us so we didn't get cold. Not like that today. It was a grade school, from grades one to eight, and then they built another room on for high school where it went from eight to twelve. Would it have been two teachers between the two rooms? Yes. Otherwise, one teacher taught eight grades. Oh, yes. I got the news to you. I'd send in an article every week, things that were going on in the community, and that wasn't when I was in the lower grades. Well, I knew a lot of people. So stories got around and mainly through the telephone. Would it be fair to say it was sort of a gossip column? I would say that now, yes. The local paper was called the Tisdale Recorder, it's still going, it was just volunteer. Well, he was a volunteer too, and he named the district and was well-known throughout. He was one of the, I guess they called him a trustee or something like that. He came to Canada as a late teenager, and then when Canada went to war he joined the Canadian Army and went overseas, and where he was wounded almost immediately as so many were. He was very fortunate, so many were killed, but he was badly wounded and was sent to a hospital in Scotland where he recovered. He didn't really talk about the war, but he had holes, like in those days there was no bathtubs, sponge baths. His back was full of holes, and as children we used to put our fingers in these holes, and he would just laugh, but never tell us what it was all about. The whole back was covered, he fought Vimy, he never talked about that. My mother being from England and a city girl, she kept us away from the barns, and she was afraid we'd get hurt. The boys were allowed out there, but when the machinery came in later, I really enjoyed that, get on a tractor and back and forth with the cultivator and the plows and everything. They didn't have freezers in those days, but no wintertime they put the vegetables and fruits in the basement where they were frozen all winter. There were times when they didn't have enough water, which came from the rain. He came from a large German family, I think there were about fourteen in the family, and they were all hardworking Germans, and he worked on the farm for my dad and also his father, and a very good looking fellow, blond, really green eyes, and he was called up to go overseas, and he went through the France, Belgium, Germany, Holland, went through the whole bit. They were still fighting in Holland when the war was over and they didn't know it. He was six years older than me, he never thought much about it. Were your grandparents, your parents talking about it? Well they were, but we didn't know anything about war. Canada, especially in the prairies, was nothing but land. You didn't see much, and we only had radio in those days, no television. Radio was quite interesting. There would be people on there that liked to talk. A lot of entertainment, music, especially western, and there was country dances that we all loved to go to, and my husband was really a good dancer. Their parents taught them to dance. Dad's Russian-German family, they were all good dancers and they did that Russian dance, they were quite musical as well, so they played the accordion. So they really liked to have a good time, and they was at the school, wasn't it? Yes, that's where they had all the dances was in the schoolhouse. If you were phoning someone in another province, you'd try not to talk too long because you were sent a bill, but that's the only way they could communicate, apart from writing letters and everyone wrote letters. I don't know if you've seen the old phones, they were made of wood, with a dialing system, and you ring like if you were phoning someone, two, twenty-three or something, well you'd two rings and then three, separate the calls. Well if the line was busy, you had to wait till that line cleared. You'd hear them talking. Well mainly going to the top of the hay was piled in there and then sliding down, just childish things. There was no skiing or anything in our family. The way we were all dressed in that picture, it was either made by me or I'd go to sales. My mother was trained in England as a milliner. So she knew not to sell? Yes, they made hats. We left the farm, of course, the war was well over, and my husband never got a pension or anything, nor did my father. He had a sister living in Vancouver, North Vancouver, and husband and a sister had phoned and said, John if you can be out here by Friday weekend, I've got a job for you. So we just packed up all the children and left the farm. Never went back. And he was working for the district of North Vancouver, Building Roads. That was in Canyon Heights, right near the Cleveland Dam. And we had a few hundred dollars which we bought property on Canyon Boulevard, I think it was. Well, we had to have a little bunny to go with, so we sold a cow. And used the money for down payment for the house on Canyon Boulevard. From there we were here. They needed help, and his brother-in-law worked for the municipality as well. So he had access to what was needed. And there were many people waiting for that job. Jobs were scarce. I heard about it in the newspapers. They were looking for help. And so I spoke to my father about it. And he said, where you go? So I got on a train and went to Ontario. And I met a family there that I stayed with wherever I went. Isabel and Joe. Morrison. They had one son. And through her, I worked in the shell-filling plant at Ajax to begin with. And she moved to where they were making bombs and had me go along. And so to make the shells, you sat behind glass. And it was a long room. And there was young people working all the way from young girls, mainly. And me sitting on this stool and with you pressing the shells, they gunpowder into the shell. And occasionally they would blow up when you were doing it. The plate glass protected you. We didn't make a lot of money, but we made money. It was sort of a monotonous day, doing the same thing over and over and over. Yeah, they were fairly heavy. We just put the shell in there. But then it went into a larger, about that high. And the strange thing, these shells that I was making, my husband was firing on the battlefield. Would you have, obviously it wasn't your husband at that time, would you have made that connection while you were making the shells? Did you know what John was doing at that time? Well, certainly yes and no. We wrote letters. And the off-time went shopping. By close. You made friends with everyone, but it didn't last because you were moving around so much. There were mainly people about my age. All the older people were at war. I think I left home when I was about 16 or 17, dropped out. Probably about six to nine months. As soon as I was 18 I joined the army in Toronto. I think it probably had a lot to do with my father and to get off the farm. Just wanted to do something. When you're a teenager you don't really think that much about helping others. You're trying to help yourself. Agree? Well, the uniform. That was the first thing. Being fitted into a uniform. And then you were in. That was important. What about the training? I started out taking office work doing that. And it was so boring. So I got into driving. I forget how long that course was. It was quite a while. He taught us how to drive just about everything. And sent out to a place that needed a driver. You were taught everything about driving a car from the tires and putting fuel in and so on. But never really had to do that. Because those vehicles were in good shape. Part of your training was the marching? Oh, yes. Can you talk about that? Well, it was fun to march. It came in very useful to me. A few years ago I joined the Lower Mainland Color Party. I was marching in all the parades. Well, my training in the Army served me well during my life. You never got up without making your bed. Never left it unmade. And consequently, some of the children picked that up, too. And you never left a mess. No, I loved it. Well, I'd love to get in those vehicles and drove a lot of jeeps and later on cars. And I'd meet the... I'd send to Halifax after my training. I would meet the ships coming in. That sort of thing, it was quite interesting. And then bringing the boys back for more from England. Quite interesting. I taught all my children to drive except the last one and my nerves had shot by them. They'd get so close to hitting another vehicle and I'd just given it up. The Army vehicles were not that great, especially during the war. Pretty heavy junky. The jeeps were probably the favorite. And they were all open. We'd be driving along. Well, if I was picking... I'd mainly be picking up officers. That's why I'd take them to a facility that was for the armed forces. They were just normal people. They just talked about where they were going. They were really only interested in themselves. Were they happy to be home? Well, the ones that I met in Halifax were... They all were. They're all dead now. I had a friend from... Well, I think she ended up living out near... Her name was Torchy. We called her Torchy. She was tall and red-headed. She's the one that sent me to Halifax and she was playing illegally. She drew the ticket for Vancouver and I caught Halifax. I forget how she did that, but that's why I went to Halifax. During my time in the services, I had a couple of friends, Torchy and her husband, and they were both in the services. We stayed friends for many years. Another friend that I stayed with while I was working in the war plants in Ontario. Unfortunately, neither are here any longer. I managed to get transferred to Vancouver since my mother was not well and I wanted to be there to help her. She was in Saskatchewan, but it was closer than Halifax. Doesn't really make sense. I applied for it and fortunately, I was granted. I was given a test time. Completed that. I think it was just the story I told that I'd grown up on a farm, round machinery, had driven tractors and so on. That helped. Very happy. I'd get to go home on holidays and have ridden that train right across Canada a few times. I'd been writing to my husband, who was my boyfriend at that time, on a regular basis. I didn't always get the letters there because of the way it was during the war. That was the plan. We were married. In those days, you didn't live together like they do today. We were married within months after he got back. My first child was born not too long after we were married. I think it grew with the letters. Well, the wedding was fairly normal. Our family had always gone to church. So it was a church wedding and families were all invited but didn't all come. Do you remember? No, you were not born. There was complications because neither mom's parents or dad's parents went to the wedding because dad was from a Catholic family and mom was from an Anglican family. So, Sparrows and Blue Jays don't mix. You refused to sign the paper saying that you were going to raise your children Catholic so dad had to walk you around the church. To talk me into it. That was the request of the Catholic Church that I become a Catholic and I refused. So the priest talked to John and said, you talk her into it and it'll be okay. So I did sign it but I never became a Catholic. For John and I, we were just quite happy just to be married and family thought that we should be either a Catholic or a Protestant and we were married through the Catholic Church but to this day we're Protestant. Well, John was so happy to have me that he would have done he left the church for me. I think as a father he was overly strict with the children and I think that had a lot to do with the war but his parents were very strict also but he was a much better grandfather. Loved his grandchildren. Why don't you talk about the PTSD part of it because he definitely suffered from that after the war. Do you want to talk about that? The sleepless nights, the screaming in the night that kind of thing. Don't really recall all that right now. You've told me that over the years and we know that it's simple things like he was buried alive during the war the bomb exploded near him and then his friends dug him out so he never wanted to put a shirt they had to pull over his head he always had to have a button up and that kind of lasting thing stayed with him. Yeah, I'd forgotten all about that. You told that story and then you did tell me about him suffering for years with headaches and terrible migraines and not being able to sleep all related to the war. I mean he really was in the thick of it and saw the horrendous side of the war. I may mention this, he told the story he was going to a hearing so I just went to support him and then it was about him getting hearing aids I thought he was getting a hearing test it was a hearing with a panel of people and he said well he told the story well I went out, I was working this gun this Beaufort gun and the radio was located near the gun because they had to try and communicate where to turn it to what they were going to fire on and then he says well my shift in the morning I went out and the two men working on the gun were dead I had to just pull them off and get on and do my job so once dad told that story at the hearing they said okay thank you Mr. Schoff we've heard enough and then he goes hearing aids this is for veterans of favors because that gun causes, I think it was his right side he was pretty much dead right from the war on is there some memory you want to talk about dad? like what? but do you want to talk about his PTSD about how he behaved after the war? well I guess that had to do with his being overstricted with the children he's quite violent he never ever, he came close to it but he never ever hit me very close volunteering at the silk purse because you knew that I've been there longer than anyone I'm interested in art and people, I like people well I think you to volunteer and get outside yourself and you can give more that way in every field they need volunteers do as you're told get with it I make friends very easily I like people mom makes, mom talks to everyone so she's open to meeting people and she's also a good listener so she'll ask a question that's how she approaches people and then they get to talk about themselves and that's what people want so mom is expert at that and that's why she makes friends did you know that? no there's good in everyone I have a large family and they don't all get along for various reasons but coming from parents like they did I guess it's no wonder we talked about this a bit earlier because my oldest sister was probably the most affected by this post war with dad having PTSD and then mom coping with it a young family so she's kind of being angry her whole life and it's like why is she so angry we don't know but I believe it's this aftermath of the war that really affected her well she's very clever she can do anything started her own business and there's nothing to stop her and then anything she desires like she was Miss Vancouver for a while good looking girl but somehow or other she wants to take over and be the boss you want to talk about you think that she was affected by by her dad of course talk about that well he was so overly strict with the children and her being the number one and she refuses to accept that he had anything to do with her and she's got she has three children and they're all affected by it too I guess still being alive and well I'm very fortunate to still be alive my mother died at 76 and my father 72 and her brother died aged 40 hard trouble no matter where I go when they hear I've had eight children it's big news everyone knows well I my family belonged to Legion a long time my father would go every year to the remembered stay and that was his extent I think Legion are doing the best they can well it was kind of a fun night out and branch 44 is the one that I originally joined and they make a nice evening of having quite often they'll have music they play bingo and make everyone welcome whereas oh yes they always have something to eat Candice is in charge of TB deaths some of the ruling and way back when men could join that women couldn't and it's fortunately that's changed well when they parade they have someone in authority that's taking this like I stood there and it's always been done by men so I was like the first woman to have done it in West Van it's an honor well I think that they should think about those that have gone on ahead and not made it just want things to be better and help where they can those people who gave their lives for our country like in thousands upon thousands have I don't think much of the police now who just go around shooting people don't behave I'm watching too much television if you got any suggestions I was hoping to cheat off of your answer well for me life has been very good I'm very happy with my family and I just want the best for them if help is needed get in there and do it