For a short video showing photographs of Anne with her grandchildren and great grandchildren, please use this link. Note that video is housed on the Dropbox sharing platform:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/javfbad7o6raf4w/Memories%20of%20Anne.mov?dl=0

For those wishing to make a donation in her memory please consider the Salvation Army or World Vision. Thank You

The text below was typed by my 98-year-old mother; it was intended to be an
autobiography of sorts to document her long life. But the story ends just as she
has met my father Axel Kielland and he has gone off to England. The last words
in her unfinished text are “The parting was difficult…” (Peter Kielland)

“My parents were Scottish immigrants. My father was a carpenter, these days he
would have been called a cabinet maker. He spent seven years as an apprentice
learning his trade and he could do anything with wood. I loved the smell of the
wood and I loved to watch him work. He used to plane the wood and I’d catch
the little pieces that fell to the ground. All the tools were hand tools in those
days, at least at our house.
My mother was a small woman of tremendous spirit and generosity. She had red
hair and spirit to match. She was always the optimist believing that tomorrow
would be a better day. My sister Suzie said that if anyone of her friends admired
anything she owned, they went home with it because she would insist they
should have it.
Family choices were not sensible. I guess in those days we didn’t know a lot
about nutrition .We ate a lot of sausages but we never saw fruit. I got an orange
once a year in my Christmas stocking. We had a piano and a gramophone but
not enough food and clothing. My mother and father played the piano and my
mother had a beautiful singing voice. We were taught the old Scottish songs as
soon as we learned to talk. I’d love to know where my parents met. Whether it
was in Scotland or later when they came to Montreal.
I have the memory of a hot summer night, when I was about four, where all the
neighbors were sitting out on their steps. I asked my father for five cents for ice
cream and he said: “You will have to sing to earn it.” I was shy about singing for
all the neighbors but the thought of ice cream overcame that; I sang “Show Me
the way the go home” and got my five cents.
There was a park near our house with swings, see saw and slide where my sister
used to take me every day. She used to put me in the baby swings and a good
push would send me high and I would have to wait until the swing died down
before she would come and lift me out. This was her opportunity to go to other
parts of the park and visit her friends.
Mr and Mrs Golden owned the candy store and barber shop beyond the park,
where they sold everything imaginable. Half of it was a barber shop and the
other half was a mish mash of every thing you might need if the lights went outbatteries,
lights bulbs, etc. I always headed for the big glass case where the
candy was kept. I clutched my pennies in my hand and wondered what I should
buy today, candy buttons, fruit jellies or sponge candy. I could buy one ice
cream cone or I could spend it all on candy. In my mind the ice cream would be
gone in nothing flat, whereas the bag of candy, if I chose carefully, would last all
day! I wasn’t thinking of my teeth at that age
We were exposed to horses at an early age. They were delivery working horses.
The milkman, the ice man, the breadman they used to deliver in the old days ,
not like today. I used to stand by the horses and wait until someone took pity on
me and lifted me up so that I could stroke their soft noses. Sometimes I had
carrots to give them. Mr. and Mrs. Elliot owned the stable down by the railroad
tracks. I hated visiting the Elliots because they always hugged me and they
always wore black clothes and they smelled of the stables. I think childrens
noses are more sensitive than adults.
The older children chased the iceman. He would let us have small chips of ice
from the back of his wagon. They were very welcome on a hot day. In the winter
the milkman would leave milk outside our door. It would freeze and rise a good
two inches above the top of the bottle. I used to lick the frozen cream and was
scolded for doing so. It was worth the scolding, it was better than ice cream.
We lived in a third story flat with the outside winding stairway , My sister Suzie
would lead me down this winding stair, she was twelve years older than I. We
would go to the end of the street to wait for the train. I was so excited because
the engineers would wave back. I wondered where they were going and if I ever
see them again. Next day, there was another trainman to wave at me.
My father’s family came from Aberdeen. He was trained as a carpenter, these
days he would have been called a cabinet maker. He spent seven years as an
apprentice in Scotland learning his trade and he could do anything with wood.
I used to love to watch him work; all the tools were hand tools in those days, at
least at our house. He used to plane the new wood. I’d play with little curls of
wood he would drop on the floor
My Mother’s father, my grandfather, was the Staff Drummer of the Royal
Aberdeen Highlanders and my mother was born in the Militia barracks in
Aberdeen where they lived at the time. She was the youngest of five children.
Allan, Euphemia, Jane and James and Annie, my mother. My mother was very
close to her brother Allan, four years older than she. I don’t know at what age
they lost their parents but I know it was at a very young age. They looked after
each other.
My father’s family also came from Aberdeen. There were two boys Andrew, my
father, and Alexander. They owned a big house and had a maid. I never met my
grandparents but I understand they were quite strict, according to my father.
Then my sister Suzie was born first, then two years later, my brother Alexander,
then a year after that, my brother John. My father went off to the First World War
when John was only ten days old and he was always a very frail child, he was
very tiny and he had to be carried on a pillow. There were only letters between
my mother and father for the next five years. He left by ship and he served in the
trenches in France. They both must have through a great deal and I suspect,
they were like two strangers at the end of the five years they were apart.
I don’t know how my mother managed during the war She was tied down with
three little children who contracted all the childhood diseases, including diptheria,
scarlet fever and the Spanish Flu, the one that killed so many people. My sister
Suzie says they often couldn’t go to school in the winter because they had no
shoes or boots. Food was often scarce but my mother managed to make them
something warm for breakfast. She would break up bread into a bowl, heat some
milk to pour over it and with a little sugar, Suzie says it was quite good.
My mother would tuck them in bed at night and entertain them with songs, and
poetry and stories every night. She had a lovely singing voice and could
remember every word of every song and she had a large repertoire. In those
days, with no radio or TV people entertained themselves. She would say their
prayers with them .They prayed for everyone, including sailors at sea on stormy
nights. Then she would read them to sleep, often the Bible, since they didn’t have
many books and although they didn’t understand the words, the rhythm and her
voice were like music and they would fall asleep. Suzie used to tell me, we
couldn’t turn out bad, because we had a good, caring mother.
I wish I knew some of the details of my father’s service in France and Germany
but he never talked about it to us. He drank after coming back. He was fine on a
day to day basis but if he met any of his buddies from the war , it was off to the
pub and if it was a Friday or Saturday night , he usually came home drunk and
minus his pay envelope. In those days you received your pay envelope with cash
in it, every week usually Friday or Saturday. He was five years overseas and he
a back a changed person.
When he came home without the pay envelope, it was tough for my mother to
feed us for the next week. We didn’t have a bank account, no credit cards in
those days, so everyone had to pitch in to make things work. My brother Alex
was very hardworking. He became a messenger boy at the age of eleven and
never went to school after that. He zipped all over Montreal on a bicycle
delivering parcels. Susie became a babysitter and general housekeeper in the
neighborhood, Johnny and I were too young at that time to be wage-earners but
in those days education wasn’t as important as it is today. You could get a job at
a very early age as long as you were honest, trustworthy and dependable, and
could spell.
I was born at home five years after my father came back from the war and I’m
sure I was a surprise. Suzie had wished for a baby sister for years, her little
brothers were always fighting. She couldn’t believe her good fortune when I
came along. They put a pillow in a drawer of a chest of drawers and it made a
comfy bed as far as I was concerned. When I got a little older for entertainment,
my brothers would put me in a blanket, hold the 4 corners and toss me in the air.
I can remember as a toddler flying out of the blanket, and hitting my head on the
steel bed springs and howling loudly. I had a big lump on my head.
We had lots of fun though. Suzie could make a toy out of nothing. She would
take a match box and cover it in little scraps of material sewing by hand. Then
she would make clothes for tiny dolls made out of celluloid that I’m sure we
bought for a penny. She had infinite patience and spent hours with me. We had
very few clothes and so she was forever washing by hand and ironing so that I
always had something clean to wear. Suzie was great at putting on
neighborhood backyard concerts. She would round up anyone that she
suspected of any talent and would talk them into performing. She would put up
sheets for the curtains for the stage and everyone in the area either took part or
were the audience. My sister would have been a good stage mother.
My sister didn’t want to take lessons to dance, she wanted me to dance. I wasn’t
interested. I just wanted to play with my friends. I later learned to love it.
I don’t quite know how my sister Suzie managed to wangle my mother and father
into dancing lessons for me because we had so little money, but at the age of
four I started lessons with the West Sisters Dance Studio in Montreal I started
with Scottish dancing, Highland Fling, Sword Dance, the foursome and
eightsome reels. Then, there were the Irish reels and jigs. There were five West
sisters. They were really all very good and they went down to New York to get
new routines. We learned character, ballet, national and tap, and I suppose I
really had a lot of fun too but I really was shy about being on stage and they used
to put on a whole evening of dancing both at the Protestant and Catholic Sailors
Club in Montreal and to raise money for charities.. Sometimes they finished
about midnight and I remember falling asleep on the streetcar home. The
concerts were very well attended as there was no TV .at that time and not
everyone had a radio so concerts were in.
My mother died when I was six. I look back on it now and realize that I was
scared and depressed. I didn’t know about grief. I had no experience of death. I
felt very different than my school chums. I became very silent. I cried a lot when I
was alone. I don’t know what I would have done if it were not for my two brothers
and especially my sister Suzie. She was twelve years older than I and she was a
great influence in my life.
She cared about me and I loved her and depended on her. She became like my
mother when our Mother died. The trouble was Suzie was still a teenager and
was crazy about boys. She used to sneak out to the park at night after I was
asleep and meet boys. One night when the rest of the family was out I woke up
to find that the house was dark and everybody was out . We had light bulbs
hanging from the ceiling with a switch on them and I wasn’t tall enough to reach
them even with a chair. I cried for what seemed like hours in the dark.
I suppose my father was very lonely and he married soon after my mother’s
death. We lived in a basement apartment at that time and the gloom that hung
over me every day was unbearable. My mother had a soft, kind and generous
personality. My stepmother was strange and mean. We children disliked her
because she was always critical of my mother. We naturally defended my
mother. My stepmother’s previous husband left her a lot of money. She
scrimped and saved on food and complained about our big appetites. It seemed
to us that her only joy was to add to her bank account. She had investments and
she had to go to the bank because the checks would arrive every month, and
they had to be deposited, not spent.
She had died black hair and cold, black eyes and a smile that wasn’t a smile (she
showed her teeth). The hair stood up on the back of my neck when I was
introduced to her by my father and he said “.This is your new Mother. You will
call her Mother.” I choked every time I had to call her Mother. She was so unlike
my real mother.
My stepmother had a daughter named Viola. My sister got along with her, they
were the same age. She got different food than we did because her Mother said
she had a delicate stomach. Her mother was always buying her new clothes.
We had to wear our old clothes. I disliked her because she was always
whispering to my sister and telling secrets and bragging about her new clothes
Her mother said people used to stop in the street and tell her daughter looked
like the movie star, Mary Pickford.
When my Aunt and Uncle came to visit from Scotland, Viola sat in the dining
room with them. My sister and I had to eat in the kitchen and wash all the dishes.
Viola didn’t have to do any work. I often wonder why my father didn’t stand up
and object for us. I guess he was afraid of my stepmother too. She used to throw
tantrums, and take down all the pictures from the walls and say she was leaving.
I secretly wished that she would. It was a very unhappy household. There were
arguments every day. I used to cry and tug on people’s clothes and shout, Stop
fighting!
I suspected something was up when I saw my sister whispering to my brothers.
One terrible day I came home after school and they were gone. It was a shock
because I had never imagined that they would leave me behind with my
stepmother. I panicked because I didn’t know where they had gone. They had to
leave me, I was only ten and in school and they had jobs and couldn’t look after
me.
It was many weeks before I heard from Suze through my girlfriend and I was so
glad to hear her voice. She said they had rented an apartment and she was
afraid to tell me where it was because my stepmother could squeeze anything
out of me. She was also afraid that our stepmother would find them. ( That is how
afraid we all were of her. )
I did of lot of crying and feeling sorry for myself until my sister got in touch with
me through my girlfriend. She told me that I would have to be patient. They had
an apartment and it was going to be some time before they would earn enough
money to get some furniture. They slept on the floor. After her phone call I was
relieved. I had hope and the promise that I would be with them some day.
Some Day turned out to be three long years .Then one day out of the blue, my
stepmother said I could go. She gave one streetcar ticket but no money. I was
so excited and nervous I thought I was going to throw up, but I couldn’t get off the
streetcar because I had no money to get on again. All the way there I worried
about, what if they weren’t home, what would I do? However, they were home!
My sister answered the door. They were eating their dinner, which they shared
with me. I was so happy! My brothers ate their dinner and announced they were
going out for a walk. My sister and I sat talking and drinking tea, for hours, we
had so much to say.
I consider that to be one of the happiest days of my life. I had my family back!
They had a small apartment; living room, dining room, kitchen and one bedroom.
My brothers slept in the dining room, in a pull out bed. My sister had the small
bedroom (everything was small in that apartment) Suzie bought a bunk bed when
I arrived and I slept in the top bunk. I was in Heaven!
I was only thirteen. I should have been in High School, only at that time in
Quebec there was a monthly fee needed for High School and we didn’t have
money for that. I needed a job! My sister worked at International
Correspondence Schools and got me a job in the mailing room. The hours were
9 to 5 with half days on Saturday for five dollars a week. I went to night school
where I learned shorthand and typing and moved on to secretarial work.
Suzie bought a small sewing machine. We made our clothes. The first thing I
made was a white tartan shirt and I bought two sweaters to go with it. I was so
proud of the white Tartan skirt I had made.
There was a dancing school on Sherbrooke St just around the corner from where
we lived. Suzie decided it was just what I needed, to make me forget those
terrible years when they left me, she made an appointment for me, without telling
me. She said I was to learn Ballroom Dancing! I said I wouldn’t go, I was shy
and scared. She said it was booked and paid for and I would have to phone and
cancel the appointment myself. I didn’t have nerve to cancel the appointment and
so I went. It changed my life!
The school was owned by Mr and Mrs Peter Miller. They had thick Scottish
accents and he had a marvelous singing voice. She managed the school and
taught ballet and he taught ballroom dancing, tap dancing and singing. I learned
Ballroom Dancing and then went on to Exhibition Ballroom. The Millers were very
kind to me. They were like my parents; they gave me good advice which I
followed. They used to take me up to their cottage on the weekends. I found it
too lonely way up in the country. I was a city girl. I preferred dancing in their
studio on Sherbrooke Street in good old Montreal, and eventually taught
Ballroom Dancing there.
My brother Alex went off to war in the Air Force. My brother Johnny had a bad
heart so they wouldn’t take him and that left three of us to pay the rent.
I got paid weekly, $5.00 for five and a half days a week, my sister earned eight
dollars a week, and Johnny earned Ten dollars. I can remember Saturday
afternoons, (we worked half a day on Saturday) that was when we divided up the
money that we were to live on for the next week. There was rent, bus fare and
food. In all those years, we never went into debt. We had a rule, if there was no
money for it, we didn’t have it. I always made sure I had 25cents for the
Saturday afternoon movie at the Westmount Theatre.
There were a lot of young English lads sent over to Canada during the war to
learn to fly. The nightly bombing over England were taking its toll, and they
needed pilots fast. They didn’t know any girls in Canada. The Millers, formed a
Friday night free ballroom dance class and any one could come and we would
dance to records of Glenn Miller and Tommy Dorsay. We would all wind up at
Murrays Restaurant for pie and coffee.
The Westmount Movie theatre was at the corner of our street. In those days it
was twenty five cents on Saturday afternoon, they ran the double feature over
and over again and you could stay as long as you liked, until they closed at 11
PM. I fell in love with the Movies! It was a dream world of Robert Taylor and
Clark Gable. For 25cents I could dream of things I hadn’t experienced. I ran into
trouble with Suzie because I went in the afternoon and stayed until closing. It was
innocent entertainment but Suzie thought that I would run off to Hollywood or that
someone would kidnap me from the theatre. She had all sorts of wild ideas. I
knew where I belonged, with my sister and brothers! Besides, I was much too
cowardly to leave Montreal for an unknown Hollywood. What would I do in
Hollywood? Be lonely and hungry!.
I met a girl who lived on the same street as I did. Her name was Phyllis and we
remained friends for many years until we both married. We used to go to movies
together some times, but she wasn’t as addicted to the movies as I was. Her
Mother used to invite me to have dinner with them at least once a week. There
were nine children in her family and they were pretty relaxed and happy. They
always played games after dinner.
The years moved on and I worked as a secretary for Bell Telephone and
Associated Screen News, and at night I taught ballroom dancing at Peter
Millers. One night Peter told me I had a new student. His name was Axel Kielland
and he was a fourth year student at McGill University. The first impression was
that he had beautiful blue eyes and a nice smile.
He was quite good after half a dozen lessons and then he asked me to the Prom.
I learned afterward that he was shy and I was the first girl he had asked for a
date. He had to work summers to earn enough money to go to McGill University.
Before the Prom, he asked me to dinner at his house where I met his mother and
father and his sister. I fell in love with him and his family. His mother played the
piano and sang beautifully which reminded me of my mother. I had been missing
my mother since I was seven years old.
He had been born in Norway and his family came to Canada when he was four
years old. His Mother used to tie him to the big tree outside their house, because
he didn’t speak English and she was afraid he would get lost. He soon learned to
speak English because all the kids in the neighbourhood used to gather around
the big tree to see this stranger who they couldn’t understand. His whole family
learned to speak English very soon but they always spoke Norwegian at home.
His whole family had the Norwegian look¸ fair skin and nice rosy cheeks.
When he graduated from McGill he received an offer from A.V Roe to go to
England and study Jet Engines for a year. It turned out to be one year and six
months. The parting was difficult