1966 National Memorial (Silver) Cross Mother – Josephine Stephens

Details

Mrs. Alex Colville, who lost her three pilot sons - Alex., Bill and Sandy - all within 15 months in the war, is seen with Rev. J.D. Parks and Mrs. W.H. Jacobson, national president of the Silver Cross Women of Canada. Mrs. Jacobson presented charter to RCAF chapter here yesterday.

Close

Mrs. Josephine Stephens, formerly Colville, of Toronto, Ontario, was the 1966 National Memorial (Silver) Cross Mother. During the national Remembrance Day ceremony in Ottawa on November 11, 1966, she laid a wreath at the base of the National War Memorial on behalf of all mothers who have lost a child in military service to Canada.

On May 6, 1942, her son, Flight Sergeant William Freeborne Colville, was killed in an airplane crash in Newfoundland while serving with the Royal Canadian Air Force.

On March 16, 1944, a second son, Flying Officer Alexander Colborne Colville, went missing while serving with the Royal Canadian Air Force in a bombing raid.

On August 18, 1944, a third son, Flying Officer John Spencer Colville, was killed flying a typhoon fighter-bomber in France while serving with the Royal Canadian Air Force.

Every Sunday, Mrs. Stephens (Colville) would make a big chicken dinner for her family and up to five servicemen, temporarily posted in her area. In the years following the war, she received hundreds of letters of gratitude from men who had survived and whom she had welcomed into her home. She remarried in 1949 to George Stephens.

List of National Memorial (Silver) Cross Mothers

(Information courtesy of the Royal Canadian Legion, Canadian War Museum and families of the National Memorial (Silver) Cross Mothers)