Collection search - Honsberger, Irwin L. - Interview

Record information – Brief

1

Honsberger, Irwin L. - Interview

Item number (ISN):

379004

Series title:

[The Great War and Canadian Society]

Hierarchical level:

Item (Accession level)

Date:

1974-06-09

Item number (ISN):

379004

Link to related resource:

Type of material:

Sound recordings

Found in:

Archives / Film, Video and Sound

Link to this record

Add to My Research

Link to this record

This link identifies the web page describing this particular record. Unlike the temporary link in your browser, this link will allow you to access, and reference, this page in the future. To link to this descriptive record, copy and paste the URL where ever needed (wiki, blog, document).

Sign in

Sign in to start saving records using My Research

Sign in
Record information – Details

Fonds/collection:

THE GREAT WAR AND CANADIAN SOCIETY PROJECT

Accession:

1975-0098

Media:

Sound

Part:

1 of 1

Production date:

1974-06-09

Production company:

Opportunities for Youth

Production credit:

interviewer, Bradley K. Adams

Description:

Show detail Hide detail

Interview of Irwin L. Honsberger of Toronto, age 83, who was born at New Georgian Bay in 1891. Subjects discussed include: growing up in a poor district; his family’s move to another farm; a move three years later to another farm with a log house; his father’s investment in a shingle mill and then a saw mill; Honsberger’s work when young as a fireman at the mill; holidays; his high school education; his work as a teacher in a country school starting in 1907; the extreme poverty of the farmer who were trying to make a living off the poor, sandy soil; his success at school; his siblings who remained on farms; his being part of a strict but coherent Mennonite community; the small saw mill serving the local community; the job of fireman at the sawmill to work with the boiler; the jobs at the sawmill; the precarious living earned by farm labourers who had to rummage around for jobs; his students and life as a teacher; his decision that there was no future in teaching and his decision to go to Toronto to attend business school circa the age of 21; attending Shaw’s Business School; his job as an accounting clerk at a cream separator company, earning seven dollars a week; other jobs such as salesman; his office job at the Toronto Street Railway until the First World War broke out; an anecdote about a Toronto Street Railway employee who disappeared at the outbreak of the war and the suspicion that the man was a spy; getting fired and his new job at a laundry; his decision to enlist; the view held by most people that everyone should pull their weight during the war and be loyal; his decision to join the unit called [Haggarty’s Angels]; exemptions for Mennonites; his ability to adjust to life as a soldier; sending part of his pay back home to his wife-to-be; being confined to barracks for forgetting to clean his bayonet; being sent to France, where he felt more freedom; going to the front; joining the Canadian Mounted Rifles; getting used to having to dodge a lot of shells; conscripts; an incident in which an airplane pilot dropped bombs on his own troops, killing 37; going over the top, despite getting his machine gun caught in wire; getting lost and having to take refuge for an entire day before it was safe to go out; the celebration at the time of the Armistice; women praying at that time; demobilization; his job as a clerk doing the office work necessary to demobilize the troops; the questions asked to troops who were being demobilized, including where they wanted to go in Canada; several weeks at Bramshott Camp; being sent to Liverpool and then to Canada; rare incidents such as an officer who was shot for shooting a private; arriving in Toronto; his immediate discharge; his feeling that he would have been better to stay in the army for a while; his return to the farm; his not feeling that the war had changed him much; a job at Goodyear until 1924, when Goodyear was having trouble with contracts and supply problems; his work in the mixing room and as an instructor at Goodyear; working conditions there; his move to ITS, another rubber company; health hazards of working in a rubber factory; getting a clerical position at Canadian Industries Limited (CIL) in 1925; life during the Depression; his view that his experience in the war gave him a great education in "philosophy" and contacts; and comments on war profiteers such as Joseph Flavelle and Sam Hughes.

Language:

English

Notes:

Show detail Hide detail

1. The interviews took place in 1974 and resulted in the publication of a book entitled "The Great War and Canadian Society" edited by Daphne Read - copyright 1978 - New Hogtown Press, Toronto.~2. Release forms, data sheets, and summary analysis/transcripts are available in binders labelled Opportunities for Youth - War and Canadian Society in VSA's audio-visual section.~3. Part of a series of recorded interviews with elderly citizens who lived in Canada during the period of World War I. The interview material consists of their opinions and observations about the war, the war years, and the effect on Canadian society during and after WWI.~4. The interviewee signed an agreement giving consent for a recording of this interview to be placed in the Public Archives of Canada for the purposes of historical research and also signed a publication agreement allowing any transcribed portions of the interview to be used in the book under the condition that no full names, addresses or phone numbers would be published.~5. Subject description is based on information found in the fact sheet, deposit agreement, publication agreement and summary analysis.
Ordering and viewing options

Conditions of access:

Open

Consultation copy number:

A1 2007-05-0016
A1 2007-05-0017

Restrictions on consultation:

No Restrictions / Pas de restrictions

Reproduction access:

With written permission of Copyright Owner / Avec la permission écrite du détenteur des droits d'auteur

You can order materials in advance to be ready for you when you visit. You will need a user card to do this.

Cannot visit us on site? You can purchase a copy to be sent to you. Some restrictions may apply.

Report a problem on this page

Date modified:: 2024-06-27