Lost in the woods

 Maureen Johnny Aunt Helen  and Mommy

probably the year after we got lost 

Daddy worked for the National Research Council on the corner of Blair and Montreal Roads in Ottawa Ontario. There were many small houses built there during and after the war to provide housing for the NRC employees and their families. At the same time, the same types of houses were built on the Rockliffe airbase which was situated just slightly North West of where we lived. They were built at around the same time for men and women of the Canadian Airforce and their families.

Overall, 46,000 similar homes were built across Canada, during and after the Second World War, by the Wartime Housing Corporation (which became the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation in 1946.) Initially, these homes were built to house people working in war-related industry. Anyways that's a little bit of history surrounding the type of house that we lived in at that time
click here and here

Here's a bit of trivia about this house that we lived in when I was 2. Daddy told me that when I was born he planted a tiny lilac bush near the house. Years later when the NRC wind tunnel in the area of Blair Road and Montreal Road was built it was exactly where our house was and even though the house wasn't there anymore daddy told me that the lilac tree still was. I didn't know this until a few years before mommy died in 2001, When I found out  I went down Blair Road to take a look at the Wind Tunnel. I was disappointed because  I  didn't see the lilac tree but it gave me a better sense of where I lived as a two-year-old

Memory is a funny thing. Some things you can’t remember and other things are so vivid it seems like they happened yesterday. I remember that it was a cute little house. I remember the frilly curtains in the kitchen. I remember one time standing on a chair in the living room while mommy fixed the hem on a pretty pink dress she bought me to wear to the birthday party of the little girl who lived next door I think her name was Ann but I'm not sure and she might have had a brother John as well but again I'm not really sure.  

My memory of being lost with Johnny is just two scenes really but they are pretty vivid. 

One scene I remember is that we are surrounded by trees and I'm crying and Johnny is holding my hand and telling me not to worry and that he will look after me. And the second one is a clear picture in my mind of Daddy, and at least one other man, and a truck that had two doors at the back that opened outward. I remember one of the men ( probably daddy) stepping out of the back of the truck.  I don't remember anything after that but mommy and daddy filled me in with some of the details as I grew older and here they are

The day that we two kids got lost. Johnny was three and I was two. We had been playing outside in the backyard for a few minutes while Mommy was making our lunch. Mommy said that she had done this many times before and she didn't worry because daddy had built a fence behind the house that enclosed the yard. But for some reason, on this particular day, we were able to slip away unnoticed while mommy was busy making us each a peanut butter and jam sandwich. Maybe the gate wasn't closed properly or perhaps we crawled under the fence: I'm not sure. I don't know who instigated this escape but I'm thinking it was probably me.

We must have scurried along at record speed because when Mommy came to get us for lunch we were totally out of sight. Mommy said she was never so scared in her life and believes her hair started to turn gray at that moment. She immediately contacted daddy. She feared the worst: that we were taken by some stranger, never to be seen again. I don't know if we had a telephone or if she just ran to tell daddy at work. One of the men daddy worked with had a good size truck and offered to help search for us.

Mommy continued looking for us around the neighborhood while daddy and the other men went down Montreal Road and Blair Road in the truck.

Several hours later they found us in a clearing in the woods off of Blair Rd., down by the Ottawa River. I was crying and Johnny was holding my hand.

I don't remember anything after getting in the truck.

I never thought to ask mommy and daddy if they called the police.

Anyways, mommy said it was the worst day of her life but when daddy came home with us it turned into her happiest one.