The Second World War was a terrible and wondrous time for Jim and Joyce Horne of Red Deer.
Out of the war’s destruction and chaos grew a rare relationship that’s lasted more than three-quarters of a century.
Five generations of Hornes plan to gather in Red Deer to help the couple celebrate their 75th wedding anniversary. It will take place on June 30 in the company of their children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great grandchildren.
Jim, who is now 97 years old, met Joyce, now 93, on a blind date in England, while he was on leave from his artillery base in Kent.
The then 19-year-old soldier from Red Deer wasn’t sure what to expect when his friend set up a double date with two English girls.
But when 15-year-old Joyce showed up, Jim recalls “I thought she was beautiful… She had beautiful blue eyes…”
Joyce remembers being intrigued by Jim’s exotic black hair — an indicator of his part-Cree heritage.
“I wasn’t used to that. Where I’m from, everyone’s fair…”
The couple became friends first. Romance didn’t blossom until they met again in 1942. Even then, it was mostly courtship by letter, as Jim moved to infantry units in Sicily, then mainland Italy, Belgium and Holland.
Jim explains he had enlisted chasing adventure and trying to escape poor job prospects in central Alberta. He had no idea what he would be in for.
”I think I must have had nine lives,” Jim now reflects.
He went from firing anti-aircraft guns at German bombers to retraining as an infantry soldier in Italy after the Blitz ended.
Jim fought in the Battle of Monte Cassino, which claimed many Allied lives. He was also sent on dangerous missions, including crossing enemy lines to capture a German prisoner.
But he sustained his worst injuries after an army vehicle he had been travelling in rolled down a ravine.
Jim recalls his head gash and knee injury were so alarming, a medic wanted to transfer him to hospital, but he refused. He didn’t want to lose his trusted cohorts and be transferred into another army unit.
Jim remembers advising a newly arrived Red Deer friend, Alan Groom, to stay in camp to train after the two crossed paths in Italy.
“But he didn’t have a choice. They sent him off to fight the next day because they needed soldiers. And he was killed a week later.”
Life was almost as perilous on the homefront.
After Joyce returned early from an evacuation to Wales, she slept in a two-metre-by-two-metre air raid shelter that her father assembled and buried in the backyard.
A deafening blast was heard one night. Joyce saw that a bomb had landed just 10 feet from their home’s front door.
She knew neighbours who lost loved ones and all of their belongings.
While assisting with the Red Cross in Kent, Joyce would receive sporadic letters from Jim that were months old.
“I knew he was alive two months ago, but I didn’t know if he was still alive,” she remembers thinking.
The day the war ended, Jim was in Holland, writing another letter to Joyce.
He remembers two other soldiers were playing cards nearby, when another guy from their unit carelessly activated a grenade. Instead of throwing it, he dropped it in a panic and ran, resulting in shrapnel injuries to his comrades.
Joyce was elated when Jim returned from the war. The couple didn’t waste time, marrying in England on June 30, 1945.
A year later, they moved to Canada after Jim promised Joyce that they could return to Kent if she hated central Alberta.
Joyce had traded her “cathedral city” for a rural community of 4,000 people.
“I said we have villages bigger than that!” she recalled.
But she grew to love her new land.
The couple raised two sons and a daughter, moving around the province as Jim took various jobs with grain elevators.
Joyce worked as a clerk at the Didsbury hospital for more than 20 years before they both retired and moved back to Red Deer.
The couple, who returned to England for multiple visits and even travelled to Italy, look forward to the family gathering that will mark their 75th wedding anniversary.
But don’t ask them for snap answers on sustaining a long, harmonious marriage.
Jim believes it comes down to having genuine admiration for your spouse.
“Joyce is well educated, very intelligent and has always had hobbies, like knitting. She’s amazed me with what she could do.”
Joyce believes it lies in respecting your partner, even when you both don’t agree.
“You don’t want to treat each other badly or call each other down in company… We’ve had our ups and downs, like any couple, but it always works itself out in the end.”
Coming of age during the Second World War meant having to grow up fast, bearing a lot of responsibility — and the Hornes believe that kind of experience helped to cement their marriage.
lmichelin@reddeeradvocate.com
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