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06
Jan
17
End of world war brings peace and prosperity to Canadian immigrant
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End of world war brings peace and prosperity to Canadian immigrant Featured

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The world has changed a lot since Don Wise was young.

Growing up on the streets of England during WWII, the devastation and starvation he endured as a child is a far-cry from the comfort he enjoys as an adult in Canada.

“I lived through the bombings and killings,” he says quietly from his room at Helen Henderson Retirement Lodge. “I’d wake-up and half the street would be gone. They (German airplanes) would come over and bomb the daylights out of us.”

Don reminisces softly; interjecting occasionally to ask if he is talking too much. His room is warm and comfortable with pictures of his family and friends scattered about neatly. The walls are covered in beautiful landscape portraits, hand painted by a talented friend.


Clearly happy to have company on a cold afternoon in January 2017, Don laughs when he talks about the antics of his four siblings and the way he arrived in Canada, after the war.

The eldest of five children, Don’s memory is remarkably intact at 83 years old.

He smiles thinking about the time he observed his younger brother hanging around a group of German prisoners involved in a work detail in his hometown of Romford. Rushing home to relay the details to his mother, he was taken by surprise when she said she was just happy her youngest son was being fed by the prisoners of war.

“That’s a true story,” Don says confidently. “There was very little food around. You just lived that way. It was the way of life. Back then, you lived day-by-day.”

Don was 11 years old when the war ended in 1945. A few years later, he enlisted in the British military where he served in Egypt for approximately 18 months after basic training in the United Kingdom.

His contributions to the post-war effort was marked by two pins recently received from the British military. Don holds the pins with pride. Glittering from their boxes, one says Canal Zone and the other says Her Majesty’s Armed Forces. He doesn’t talk about his time in the service.

Looking out the window in his room, he jumps to his time working for Ford motor company and public utilities.

He chuckles when he gets to the part of his life where he and three friends decided on a whim to travel to Canada

“We said, let’s go to Canada and see what it’s like,” he notes wryly.

Don was 20 when he landed with his friends near Montreal.

“We only had one driver’s license between the four of us,” says Don about that spontaneous decision. “We took off in an old beat-up car that we bought. Every time we came to a town or city, we’d try to get work. I stopped when I arrived in Kingston and I’ve been here ever since.”

Don has lost contact with the two Irishmen and Englishman who accompanied him to Canada. None of his siblings live in Canada.

“We’re spread all over the place,” he says matter-of-factly.

Asked if he likes living in his adopted country, Don answers with a smile, “Yes, after three marriages, I don’t have much choice.”

Father of two children and a stepchild, the soft-spoken Englishman is grateful for a life well-lived and the care and comfort he receives at the accredited retirement home in Amherstview, Ontario.

“I find the help is unbelievably good,” he says earnestly about the quality of care at Helen Henderson Retirement Lodge.

“It’s wonderful here.”

Find your happiness at Helen Henderson Retirement Lodge. Rooms are now available! For a free tour, please call Deborah Warren at 614-384-4585 ext. 233.

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