Helen Rapp Way is named in memory of Sergeant Helen Rapp.
Helen Rapp (née Villeneuve) was born on 25 July 1925 in Schumacher Ontario, a few km east of Timmins. At the age of 15, she left her hometown accompanied by her mother, to work in a weapons factory in Hamilton. Working a lathe to produce the barrels of Bofor guns, she remained in Hamilton until 1942 at which time she lied about her age in order to enlist in the Canadian Women’s Army Corps (CWAC). She completed her basic and clerk’s training in Kitchener and was transferred to the Directorate of Signals at Army Headquarters in Ottawa. She worked in Ottawa throughout the war, attaining the rank of Sergeant.
In 1946, she left the military, but remained in Ottawa and became an advocate for military widows as well as volunteering at the Queensway-Carleton Hospital, Armed Forces Pensioners’ Association and the Canadian War Museum. Helen Rapp passed away on 22 August 2013.
