First trip to Paris

Heroes Remember

First trip to Paris

Transcript

My own son, often said, "Mom tells us about the war." Well I mean I think of the fun, the pleasantries, the, you don't think of the hardship. They weren't, we were all doing the same thing, you weren't being picked on, so you do the best you can, right? It was your own fault if you didn't get the most out of it. It's like the first night I went to Paris, I went to, I'll just tell you this cause it's kinda of funny, a little French nurse that was with us, Gogan, and I were the first two from our hospital to go on a leave on the continent and we were going to Paris, and this was before the Armistice, and we thought "Oh Paris, isn't this wonderful," you know, "Paris in the spring, tra la." So we get up to Brussels, to get the train into Paris, and oh the trains are all crowded and so I went to the RTO, and I said, "You know we're the only nurses, the only females on this train, do you think there is a compartment or something for us?" Well they dug around and they had one, and you know we kept dreaming of Paris, as every girl does, and we got down there and we were met at the RT by the RTO, to take us to our hotel, and they took us to the YWCA. Now I have nothing against the YWCA, but that was not my idea of Paris. But they didn't know what to do with us we were the first Nursing Sisters they've had, so we went to the YWCA. We had to be in at 10 o'clock at night, we said, "No, we're not doing that". So they gave us a little leeway. We were the only officers there. We had to pull a chain outside the door when we came in at night. Some poor creature came down in a nightcap and nightgown and let us in. It was funny. I mean, you know, you can imagine, when you have been through all this and you think, "Oh, I'm going to Paris," you think "Great!"

Description

Mrs. Page talks about how you made the best of a bad situation, and her first trip to Paris.

Nancy de Boise Page

Mrs. Page was born in Saint John, New Brunswick. Her father was a doctor and her mother a nurse. Mrs. Page recalls going to the hospital with her father when she was young and knowing early on that nursing was her calling. She trained at the Royal Victoria in Montreal and in 1942 joined the army as a Nursing Sister. She served overseas in England, France and Belgium loving every moment she was able to help the soldiers. Following the war Mrs. Page returned to Queen Mary's Veterans Hospital in Montreal to continue nursing Canadian Veterans.

Meta Data

Medium:: Video
Owner:: Veterans Affairs Canada
Duration:: 02:33
Person Interviewed:: Nancy de Boise Page
War, Conflict or Mission:: Second World War
Location/Theatre:: Northwest Europe
Branch:: Army
Occupation:: Nursing Sister

Language selection

First trip to Paris

Heroes Remember