Collection search - McRuer, James C. - Interview

Record information – Brief

1

McRuer, James C. - Interview

Item number (ISN):

380574

Series title:

[The Great War and Canadian Society]

Hierarchical level:

Item (Accession level)

Date:

1974-07-08

Item number (ISN):

380574

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:

1974-07-08

Production company:

Opportunities for Youth

Production credit:

interviewer, William Richardson

Description:

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James C. MacRuer, age 89, was born in 1890 in Oxford County, Ontario. He talks about: his family background; his father and siblings; life on the family farm; his education in a one-room school and then at high school in Paris, Ontario; his decision to become a lawyer; studying at the University of Toronto; dropping out because he was sick; going into law by articling, starting in 1909; his dislike for farming; his view that farm boys took work more seriously than did city boys; his finding out that the First World War had broken out; the rush to enlist by men who were seeking adventure or who were in the militia; how his parents would have been hurt if he had enlisted rather than becoming a lawyer; his enlistment 18 months after the war started; getting a commission in the artillery; his decision to enlist because of the propaganda and being made to feel that if he did not join up he was a “quitter”; his recollection that “you had a feeling that you weren’t doing what you ought to be doing”; working for the YMCA before enlisting; running a canteen in Exhibition Camp; not being impressed with the Royal School of Artillery at Kingston; how the war changed his life and his outlook; his gaining a better knowledge of human nature and men; his recollection that “it was a real education . . . you had to take hard things”; his meeting a lot of “fine fellows”; the winter of 1916-1917 in England; being put into the First Canadian anti-aircraft battery when he was in France and how the battery was in the experimental stage; getting wounded at Vimy Ridge when he struck a bomb with a pick-axe; being sent back to Canada to recuperate; his unhappiness when he was back in Toronto because he wanted to be at the front; his feeling at the time that Canada was “unreal”; how the war changed attitudes; the impact of the nearness of death; the lack of jealousy and meanness; how nobody “was trying to get the better of you” and how life in the army was “a society of little difference”; his view that his Captain, who also was a lawyer, was “kind of contemptible”, was caught stealing and was disbarred after the war; how some acquaintances formed in the army carried through to civilian life; meeting a friend in the ranks; relationships of officers to the ranks; the desire to destroy Germans although there was not much hate for them; going to great trouble to save wounded Germans; the army as an “amateur army”; the difficulty of adjusting to civilian life in the postwar years; having trouble in the law firm, where men who did not go to war were doing better; how his career improved; and his winning accolades for his successful prosecution in 1925 of the western fruit combine under the 1921 Anti-Combines Act.

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.~6. The University of Toronto Thomas Fisher Rare Book library holds two of his war diaries from 1918.

Detailed holdings information:

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Vault ISN:

437696

Format:

SOUND

Location number:

C02496

Vault code:

GAT

Number of items:

1

Kind of sound:

R/R

Technical description:

POLY

Made from:

FROM LOANED MATERIAL

Status:

MASTER

Vault ISN:

437698

Format:

SOUND

Location number:

C02497

Vault code:

GAT

Number of items:

1

Kind of sound:

R/R

Technical description:

POLY

Made from:

FROM LOANED MATERIAL

Status:

MASTER

Vault ISN:

737187

Format:

SOUND

Location number:

1975-0098/239

Vault code:

GAT

Number of items:

1

Kind of sound:

CASSETTE

Made from:

DEPOSIT

Status:

ORIG
Ordering and viewing options

Conditions of access:

Open

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

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