A Winnipeg couple who met after the Second World War are celebrating their diamond anniversary, one day after Remembrance Day.
Jack and Yvonne Sellers — age 99 and 97, respectively — met in 1948 when Yvonne’s family moved to Davidson, Sask., from England.
Both were involved in the war effort in different ways. Jack served in the Royal Canadian Air Force, while Yvonne was part of a touring company that entertained Allied soldiers across Europe.
After a life together in Saskatchewan, Ontario, Yukon, and finally, Manitoba, the couple now live close to family at Winnipeg’s Deer Lodge Centre.
“Each place had its good times,” Yvonne told Global Winnipeg. “And the kids all sort of left and did their own thing and got married, and here we are with a pretty nice family. We have 11 grandchildren and 25 great-grandchildren.”
Remembrance Day, she said, is emotional every year, and not only because their anniversary is the following day.
“It tears me up every time. (You’ve) just got to say Remembrance Day and I tear up. It’s memories I guess. There’s bad ones and there’s good ones.”
Among those memories are Yvonne’s experience, at only 12 years old, of being sent with her siblings and countless other children from London to the south of England at the war’s outset, in an effort to keep them safe.
At 14, her acting and dancing abilities got her into a nearby local production, followed by a chance while still in her teens to join a touring group, which took her throughout Europe and gave her a close-up view of some of the war’s destruction.
“At first they used to shut down places,” Yvonne said. “But then they decided if they did that, that would be no life. So they just carried on, with buses going and shows going.
“Nobody seemed to worry. It sounds silly, but you get so used to it. You think, whatever happens is going to happen. Some of the places we went to got pretty badly bombed.”
Yvonne said she has memories of taking alternate exits from theatres after performing to avoid bloodshed just outside. She also recalls how her family’s own house in London burned to the ground after being struck by an incendiary bomb.
Half a world away, her future husband Jack had joined the RCAF in Saskatchewan and eventually ended up stationed in Halifax, patrolling for German submarines in the Atlantic Ocean.
“We just went out looking for them, the Germans,” he said. “And they were out looking for us with their subs… We found a few and sunk them.”
Jack said he signed up not long after his father completed his own military career.
“I started flying when I was quite young. I forget how old it was, but I was 18 or 19. I finished when I was right at the end of 21. Two years about, flying. I enjoyed it… I really enjoyed that time back in the air force.”
Yvonne said her sister had married a Canadian soldier, which was the catalyst for her entire family packing up and moving to Davidson — Jack’s hometown.
Their stories differ as to how they met, Yvonne says it was when she was working at a local cafe. Jack has another memory. “I think I met her at a dance, at one of the air force flying areas… We used to fly in the day and dance at night. We did a lot of dancing. The other services — navy and army — were jealous of us because we were having too good a time.”
But the differences in their memories aren’t important. Either way, the rest is history.