Marjorie Hodgins.
Marjorie Hennessy Hodgins: CWAC Veteran. Wife. Mother. Grandmother. Born April 17, 1916, in Winnipeg; died Sept. 7, 2017, in Calgary; of respiratory failure; aged 101.
When Marjorie Hennessy Hodgins died, she was one of Canada's last female veterans of the Second World War. She joined the Canadian Women's Army Corps (CWAC) in 1941 and served with an Albertan – Margaret (Sadler) Gilkes, who, later in life, would write Soldier Girl, a novel about the experiences of young Canadian men and women in uniform during the war. Maggie named her heroine after Marjorie.
But the exploits of wartime were a long way off as Marjorie grew up in Congress, Sask. Her parents, James and Thora, opened a general store and post office at what James believed would be "the end of the steel" for a railway line being built in southern Saskatchewan. The railway, however, did not come close and as a result, life was tough for Marjorie's family in a tiny hamlet on the Prairies in the days of the Dust Bowl.
Since relief trains from the East brought just enough provisions for people to survive, the seven Hennessy siblings played happily on the Prairie, dreaming of the world they were hearing about on a crystal radio. As Marjorie came of age there were few jobs in Saskatchewan. Many "stubble-jumpers," as she called her fellow Prairie folk, had to leave. She used to say that wags left signs at the border saying: "Last one to leave Sask., please turn out the lights."
She went to British Columbia to work in the orchards near Mission, and then on to Vancouver. After a time working for the post office, she joined the recently formed women's army unit – CWAC. Marjorie was soon selected for officer training at bases in Calgary and Camp Borden in Ontario. She then deployed overseas as a lieutenant in the CWAC and served as head of the Canadian Forces Post Office in Slough, England.
Lt. Hennessy met Captain Dr. Wallace Hodgins of the Canadian Dental Corps at the officers' mess in Slough at the end of the war. Wallace used to tell his children that they were fortunate to be here since, before he met their mother, he narrowly missed being killed in a rocket attack in London.
After returning to Canada, Marjorie and Wallace stayed in touch with occasional letters. Marjorie lived in Port Alberni, B.C., to help her elderly parents. After their deaths, she ventured east in 1948 to work. She reconnected with Wallace and they were married in 1949.
In the early 1950s, the couple moved to Wallace's hometown of Shawville, Que., where he would take up the vacant dentistry practice. They were often paid with eggs and farm produce during those years.
Marjorie and Wallace raised five children in the small town: Lynne, who moved to Calgary and became a social worker; John, a Catholic priest in Toronto; Patricia, a federal civil servant in Ottawa; Peter, a petroleum geologist in Alberta; and Stephen, who would remain in Shawville as a local businessman.
After Wallace died in 1973, Marjorie moved to Calgary, where two of her children reside. She lived for many years with Lynne, her eldest daughter, and welcomed 10 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren to "Nana's home."
John Hodgins is Marjorie's eldest son.
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