Five Brothers and a War

Prinses Margriet

at Woolworth's, and when her neighbor went into labor, she offered to babysit the woman's other children. She sent Prinses Beatrix and Prinses Irene to public school, just like normal Canadians. She loved going to movies, and would stand in line like everyone else to get her ticket, usually unrecognized by her fellow movie-goers.

Stornway, 541 Acacia Avenue in Ottawa’s Rockcliffe Park

As January 1943 arrived, it was brutally cold, and Canada was in its fourth year of war with the Axis Powers with no end in sight. Hundreds of thousands of Canada’s young men and women had left their homes, families and jobs to serve in the armed forces, or in the merchant marine, bringing much needed food and other supplies to embattled Britain. Coupon rationing for gasoline and tires had been introduced the previous spring and had been extended through 1942 to cover many food staples, including sugar, tea, coffee and butter. And it was only to get worse. On January 19, 1943, Ottawa’s Evening Citizen reported that meat rationing was about to be introduced. “Bacon, ham and even pork sausage [was] unable to be had for love or money in many places.” The butter ration was also about to be reduced by a third to 5 1/3 ounces per week per person. Within the bleakness of it all, there was something all Canadians could celebrate, as on January 19, at 7.00 pm the only princess ever born in North America was born at Ottawa’s Civic Hospital.

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Five Brothers and a War

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