Collection search - Evans, C.C. - Interview

Record information – Brief

1

Evans, C.C. - Interview

Item number (ISN):

379031

Series title:

[The Great War and Canadian Society]

Hierarchical level:

Item (Accession level)

Date:

1974-06-12

Item number (ISN):

379031

Type of material:

Sound recordings

Found in:

Archives / Film, Video and Sound

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Record information – Details

Fonds/collection:

THE GREAT WAR AND CANADIAN SOCIETY PROJECT

Accession:

1975-0098

Media:

Sound

Part:

2 of 2

Production date:

1974-06-12

Production company:

Opportunities for Youth

Production credit:

interviewer, Lori Rotenberg

Description:

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Interview of Mr. C.C. Evans of Toronto, age 80, who was born in 1895 in Limerick, Ireland and moved to Canada in 1912. Subjects discussed include: his childhood in Ireland; his family; his education; his religious upbringing and trouble between the Protestants and the Catholics; learning to be a watchmaker in his uncle’s business; visiting relatives in Ottawa; the family’s decision to move to Canada; the boat trip from Liverpool to Montreal; relatives in Ottawa and on a farm at Chatsworth, near Owen Sound; his father getting a job with the Auditor General in Ottawa and his getting a job as a watch-maker at Henry Birks and Sons jewellers on Sparks Street; his job as a salesman at A.E. Rae’s store; being sick with typhoid fever; the family home at 154 Irving in west end Ottawa; involvement in St. Mathias Church on Wellington Street; meeting his wife in the railway station in Ottawa; his stay in Detroit during his recovery from typhoid fever; working for the Burroughs Adding Machine Company in Ottawa and Detroit; leaving Detroit and returning to Ottawa in January 1915 because of the outbreak of the First World War; trying to enlist in the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry and being rejected because he had a heart murmur; enlisting with the 72nd Queen’s Battery in Kingston in 1915; his parents’ support for his decision to enlist; being stationed in Kingston and then Petawawa; training in horse-riding, on 18-pound guns and in body-building; working as a recruiting sergeant in Ottawa; training camp conditions in Kingston and Petawawa; his broadened outlook because in the military he met men from across Canada; taking orders; his decision to enlist because he felt that he had a job to do, to get the war over as quickly as possible; the initial view that the war would not last long; his pay as a private and as a sergeant; going to schools and churches to get recruits; reading the newspapers The Ottawa Journal and The Ottawa Citizen; news of casualties; being anxious to go overseas; returning to Kingston early in 1916 and then going to Europe later that year; conditions aboard ship, such as playing cards on deck and taking part in fire drills and evacuation drills; the friendly relationship between officers and the soldiers; more training in a place near Dover, England; conditions in the camp; volunteers to work with trench mortars; the stand-offishness of the officers in the British training camps; some deserters and thieves in the camp; instances of disobedience; loyalty to one’s own unit; going into battle for the first time at Vimy Ridge; the casualties; walking through the mud and slush; discontentment of the soldiers; Passchendaele, the worst place he had ever seen in his life; the smell of death on the Ypres-Menin Road; mules carrying ammunition; leading mules carrying shells to the gunners; suffocation and drowning as major causes of death; sleeping in cement pillboxes; rations such as hardtack and rum; the importance of rum to the soldiers’ morale and to help them sleep; dugouts; cooking on a brazier; hoarding his rum to use it in emergencies to help other soldiers; the Women’s Canadian Temperance Union campaign to stop the rum ration; ration coupons; using ration books while on leave in England; advancing up the Canal du Nord after Passchendaele; the continuous advance to Amiens; finishing up at Mons; meeting the Prince of Wales in the trenches and getting a bottle of Scotch from him; meeting some Australian soldiers; visiting relatives in Limerick while on leave in the fall of 1916; the threat of a revolution in the south of Ireland; his brother’s involvement in the uprising and the brother lost everything in the 1916 rebellion; how the war gave him a broader view of the world; London as the Mecca of enjoyment for soldiers fighting in Europe; the good relations between officers and men; and trench mortars.~He also talks about: leave; attending plays put on by the 4th Division and receiving a box of goodies from his wife and mother; getting letters from his friends; awareness of the conscription controversy; the treatment of conscripts in his unit; lice; his view that the Germans were just doing their job and that both sides were foolish to start the war in the first place; taking some Germans captive; the story about Canadian soldiers crucified by the Germans; attitudes about French Canadians who did not want to fight; some discontent about the war the war was being handled; hearing stories about some officers being shot in the back by their own men; buying Victory War Bonds; his father buying bonds for him; his family's patriotism; getting wounded and gassed; a transfer from trench mortars to artillery after the war ended; taking a mobile bath around to different sections; his return to Canada in June 1919; his discharge in Montreal; being met by his fiancée when he arrived in Ottawa; English war brides and how some of them just got married because they wanted to come to Canada; his marriage on 10 September 1919; work done by his wife during the war; his return to work for the Burroughs company; ; book-keeping machines; fixing machines; his wanting to get out of the army as soon as he got back to Canada because he saw no future in it; his decision to take a veteran's benefit of a suit of clothes and $60, rather than land in Western Canada; his view that the veterans adjusted to civilian life and did not have trouble getting jobs; the beneficial effect of army discipline on his life; going to movies and doing church work; his view that the war did not change Canadian society; his admiration for William Lyon Mackenzie King, Louis St. Laurent and Lester B. Pearson; an incident in which he was walking down Queen Street in Ottawa with his wife, shortly after the war, a firecracker exploded and he flopped down on the ground; living on Gladstone Avenue after the war; avoiding discussions with his family about the war; and wanting to forget about the war.

Language:

English

Notes:

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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.
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Conditions of access:

Open

Consultation copy number:

A1 2007-05-0048
A1 2007-05-0049

Restrictions on consultation:

No Restrictions / Pas de restrictions

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

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Date modified:: 2024-07-04