Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Wingham Advance-Times, 1984-11-14, Page 17jI leisure, features and entertainment 0 by Margaret Arbuckle Serving over 24,000 homes in Listowel, Wingharn, Mount Forest, Milverton, Ariss, Arthur, Drayton, Harriston, Moorefield, Palmerston, Bloomingdale, Breslau, Conestogo, Elmira, Heidelberg, Linwood, Maryhill, St. Clements, St. Jacobs, Wallenstein, Wellesley and West Mqntrose. Crossroads, Wednesday, November 14, 1984. Dutch liberation children look for Canadian fathers. This Remembrance Day while people all around the world were thinking about those who gave their lives in two great wars, Catherine Oosterhof of Holland probably was thinking about the Canadian who gave her life almost 40 years ago: the father she has never known. Finding her father has become an all - consuming quest for Mrs._ Oosterhof and for the estimated 4,500 Dutch "love children", many born in 1946 to Dutch mothers and Canadian soldiers of the liberation army. However Mrs. Oosterhof has found it to be an arduous and often up -hill battle, one that has cost her thousands of dollars and put her close to, the brink of mental collapse. Luckily she has made two friends along the way: Olga Rains, a Dutch war bride from Peterborough who has dedicated her life to uniting these "children of war" with their Canadian fathers, and Lloyd "Casey" Casemore of Wingham, a member of the Perth Regiment who was stationed in Holland from March to September of 1945. The dilemma of these children of the liberation was profiled on a CBC "fifth estate" program last May The program, which is to be broadcast again this month, was called television journalism at its best and even showed the tearful reunion of a Halifax veteran and' the Dutch son he never knew he '\., had. Marie deVos of RR 4, Wingham, grew to young womanhood during that time and recalls the party atmosphere of a liberated Holland. However Mrs. deVos also remembers crying in her room because her mother forbade her to go out and "fraternize" with the young Canadian soldiers, like some of her girlfriends were doing. One young woman who was swept away by this tide of euphoria was Mrs. Oosterhof's mother. When young Catherine was born in 1946, .all her mother had left was the memory of a young soldier, who had since returned to Canada. LEARNS THE TRUTH Mrs. Oosterhof was seven years old when she learned her father was a Canadian. Her grandmother is reported to have told her because her mother never would talk about it. That was the beginning of Mrs. Oosterhof's quest for her roots, which has intensified as she has grown older. Even though her mother eventually married and Mrs. Oosterhof was raised by a stepfather, her curiosity to find out about her own father peaked after she and her husband Bob had two children of their own. Because of Mrs. Oosterhof's mother's reticence to talk about her daughter's natural father, the young woman had very little information to go on when she did set out to track him down. BYPRODUCT OF WAR Children have been the only happy byproduct of war from the beginning of time right up to the "yellow hairs" born of American servicemen in Vietnam. According to an article in the Sep- tember, 1983, edition of Legion magazine, "Dutch liberation children, fathered. by Canadian soldiers at the • end of WW II were luckier than most. Because most of their parents were Caucasian, while growing up they didn't have to face taunts that they were different. Holland also prospered after the war and they never'had to face the harrowing poverty of other war children." After five years of horror and deprivation under Nazi occupation, the people of Holland welcomed their strong, handsome Canadian liberators . with open arms. A total of 170,000 Canadian soldiers served in Holland, entering on Sept. 13, 1944. Many of those soldiers remained in Holland through 1945 and even into 1946. "If you wanted girls they were there for the taking," columnist Douglas Fisher said in the Legion article. So no wonder that time became known as the `wild and crazy summer of 1945." Others in the same plight have been luckier because their mothers may have a photograph or know the soldier's name and army rank. Mrs. Oosterhof had none off those things and was forced to go on the skimpy information her mother had provided her: a last name and that he was one of the thousands of members of the Perth Regiment. ENTER MRS. RAINS Mrs. Rains came to Canada in 1946 . with her Canadian husband Lloyd. In 1980 they visited Holland where she was gathering information about a book she was writing on Dutch war brides who had returned to Holland from Canada. It was at this time that requests started trickling in from children of the liberation for help to find their Canadian fathers. At first, Mrs. Rains was not anxious to take on such an ambitious task, but when she discovered the real need among, these people she decided to help. She developed a close association with Mrs. Oosterhof and momentum has gathered since then, in the Dutch press as well as the Canadian. Mrs. Rains and Mrs. Oosterhof have become instant celebrities and through their efforts almost 100 Dutch liberation children have been united with their Canadian fathers. Mrs. Oosterhof has visited Canada twice and spent over $10,000 trying to find her father. Last summer, on her second visit here, she went to the Department of Veterans' Affairs, the National Personnel Records Centre and regimental headquarters. The two trips proved fruitless, but this spring she was lucky enough to meet Mr. Casemore, who has proved to be a valuable inside contact in the Perth Regiment. Mr. Casemore was visiting friends this May in Holland when he noticed an advertisement in an Amsterdam paper placed by a woman looking for her father, whom she believed had been a member of the Perth Regiment, the one Mr. Casemore served with in Italy and Holland. Mr. Casemore answered that ad and the woman proved to be Mrs. Oosterhof. Since then Mr. Casemore and Mrs. Oosterhof have corresponded regularly. He attended a reunion *the regiment earlier this fall and did some detective work on her behalf. Although he did not come up with any concrete leads, he and several of his army buddies agreed that the man Mrs. Oosterhof originally thought was her father probably is hot.,,, Mrs. Oosterhof�eady had reached that conclusion on er own, following a heartbreaking telephone call to Albuquerque, New Mexico. She phoned the home of the man she thought might be her father, but his wife angrily told her that her husband never had been in Holland. That left her despondent, but still she pressed on. She has been able to glean a few more bits of information from her mother, for example that her father had been an army private and that they corresponded for some time once he was back in Canada. However one day these letters, postmarked Ottawa, just stopped coming. Those two leads are something new she has to go on and she is hoping against hope that she will find her father ibefore it is too late, if it is not already. Mrs. Rains has been quoted as saying the fathers must be found soon because "If I waited 10 more years, all I would find are gravestones." Mrs. Oosterhof has one goal in life and that is to see her father. As Mr. ,CaseMilore says, these "liberation children" are not children anymore; they are men and women who want nothing more than to know their fathers. He thinks most people would be receptive to the idea of a son or daughter surfacing now from 40 years past. Those things happened so long ago, he said, that most veterans would put them behind them and accept their new-found progeny with open arms. For 'Mrs. Oosterhof, the search goes on and will not end until she gets some sort of satisfaction. She must know. LLOYD CASEMORE—of Wingham met Catherine Oosterhof earlier this year and since then has been trying to help her locate her Canadian father, a soldier during the liberation of Holland in 1944-45. Mrs.. Oosterhof has reason to believe that her father belonged to the Perth Regiment and since Mr. Casemore belonged to that regiment he has proven to be a valuable contact. COMMUNITY SER VICE 'WORKER—Shirley Brown was ordered to do 120 hours of community service work for a recent theft. So far she has done over 80 hours worth. "I'm getting into it so much," she says, "I'm going to miss it when I'm all through." WHEN CANADIAN SOLDIERS—helped to liberate Holland in September of 1944, they were Looked upon as gods by the Dutch people. However they have left behind a legacy of their stay: almost 4,500 illegitimate chldren born to Dutch girls and Cana- dian servicemen in or around 1946. Lloyd Casemore of Wingham, first in the second row, has been helping one such "liberatin baby", Catherine Oosterhof to find the father she never knew. The above photo was taken in Godlinze, Holland, just before the end of the, war in Europe. Community Service A benefi.ciai alternative Shirley Brown was lucky. She could have been sent to jail for her part in a recent theft in Listowel. She, had a previous record and had spent time in jail before. When she faced Judge W. A. Ehgoetz on Aug. 15, she didn't want to go back there. Judge Ehgoetz told her, "The real problem is finding an appropriate sentence to stop these petty acts of crime." After consideration, he or- dered her to perform 120 hours of community service work. He said through the service work the taxpayers "could ,recover something" from her and spare themselves the expense of giving her a jail term. And then he banged his gavel. Shirley Brown's sentence is not a unique one. Community service work, in lieu of a jail term orother form of punishment may only have been in- troduced in Ontario about six years ago, but now over 36,000 Ontarians are doing such work every day. They may be doing janitorial work in public buildings, or washing police cars, raking leaves, shovelling snow, painting, gardening or doing general maintenance. The point is the community is spared the expense of keeping the offender in jail (a cost which is easily above $50 a day now) and is getting the offender's labor instead. . In 1983 in Perth County alone, community service totalled 3200 hours. Atminimum wage, the county retrieved about $13,000 from its criminals. Last year the Province of Ontario spent $169, ' million running its jails and only $39.2 million supervising a much • larger number of offenders in the community. But financial concerns are not the only benefit of community service orders. There are practical and humanitarian reasons for keeping offenders out of jail if possible. If the person has a job, service work will be arranged so it doesn't interfere with his or her work schedule. Neither will- the service work interfere with school hours where•the offender is still studying. And in cases where the of- fender has children to take care of, community service work makes that possible. Of course not every criminal can he given a'community service order in lieu of a jail term. Violent offenders, for example, must be incarcerated in the interest of public safety. Winston Martin, probation and after- care director in Perth County, says community service work is most often given to offenders convicted of writing bad cheques, shoplifting, petty property offenses, theft -under $200 and, on occasion, break and enter or minor cases of vandalism. GREAT BENEFIT Mr. Martin says one of the most humanitarian factors of community service work is that it is often of great benefit to the offenders. In a pamphlet put out by the Ontario Ministry of Correctional Services, it says community involvement "gives them the chance to feel needed and to by Allan Janssen build their self-esteem as well as en- courage' a more reasonable attitude in the future". .-"Service orders are a punishment, yes." Mr. 'Martin says, "but they're also much more than that. For some offenders it helps develop new work habits or gives them experience with different types of work. You have to remember a lot of offenders don't have extensive work histories." When offenders in Perth County are sentenced to community service work, they are given an appointment with Mr. Martin. He' discusses their schedules and what kind of service work is available and gives them a choice as to what they will do. If they are given the opportunity to do something that interests them, he says, good results follow naturally. "I'd say about 95 per cent of com- munity service work is done satisfactorily. Occasionally offenders have to be taken out of the program but that's very rare. The main problem is getting them where they're supposed to be on time." He says offenders occasionally enjoy the work enough to continue working after the sentence has been served completely. Shirley Brown has done all kinds of work since she was sentenced to 120 hours of community service. So far she has over 80 hours completed. COULD BE JAIL "The first day was the hardest," she says. She had to help remove rocks from the front lawn of the Listowel municipal building. "I think they made Ninnanillft it tough work just to see if I could handle it. If I get into trouble again, though, I'll think about that work and know next time it could be worse. Or next time it could be jail." The program has, overall, been a good experience for her and she says, "Once I get my hours in I want to get a steady job and stay out of trouble." But community service orders aren't for everyone. For Ms. Brown's daughter, Carolyn, who was ordered to do 80 hours of work for a theft -under $800 conviction, the program isn't any better orworse than a jail sentence. "It didn't matter much to me," she says. "I've been to jail a couple of times before and I wasn't too paranoid about going again. It just didn't matter much." But it mattered a lot to her mother. She says she was relieved when the judge gave her the community service order. "i'm getting into it so much," she says, "I'm going to miss it when it's all through."