Josie

It has been fourteen years since she died. I was in Japan when I got the call from Dad. That night I went to bed and dreamed about her. She was young, healthy, smiling, tanned and looked so beautiful. She looked so happy. The next morning I awoke and was shaken – the dream about her was so real. Maybe Dad’s telephone call had been the dream instead? I decided to call my Aunt Hilda that morning and as soon as I heard her voice I knew it had been real. Josie was gone.

Josie was the second youngest of five siblings in my Mother’s family. According to family reports Josie was spoiled from the get go. In her father’s eyes she could do no wrong, which of course sometimes frustrated the other children, including my Mom. While the older siblings were in school, Josie would get into their “stuff.” All the precious little items that at the time meant so much to them, such as make up samples betrothed onto them by their mother. Coming home to find Josie “made-up” with their makeup smeared all over her face resulted in an immediate kerfuffle. In later years Josie said to my Mother “I remember thinking that you hated me” and without skipping a beat my Mother replied “Because I often did” after which they broke into peels of laughter.

There are many others who know so many more of the details of Josie’s life than I. Time and time again, I’ve heard how incredibly popular Josie was and that always had “a million” friends. She was a beauty queen having been crowned “Queen of the Sea” while in high school, and she always had a boyfriend. She had it all. My childhood memories of Josie include images of many weekends she came to spend with us at the farm. My mother always looked forward to these visits. They would sit at the kitchen table and talk and smoke their brains out well into the night. It was the only time my Mother smoked, which I still find strange, but I believe they had a hell of a time. Looking back now, I realize that Mom and Josie were the most alike in their dispositions. They were both very secure in themselves, loved to laugh, have fun and enjoy life. They were both so real – nothing phoney at all – and that was what attracted people to them.



All of us in bed with Josie...when we were not supposed to be!

Josie married Jimbo, and we all thought the world of him. I remember bits and pieces of her wedding day. I remember Mom’s pink bridesmaid dress (which was later cut to a knee length dress that our cousin Maura wore to a prom dance) and how sweet Erica looked as her flower girl. I was in charge of throwing the confetti outside the church and was reminded on more than one occasion by Josie how I threw it in one big lump onto her head when she exited the church. All I remember is being nervous and letting it go, which in retrospect proved to be an early example of how I do not work well under pressure.

Josie and Jim bought a home on Queen Elizabeth Drive in Charlottetown and it was a home I would come to know well. After graduation, I moved into ‘town’ at ca. seventeen years of age and where I spent the subsequent two years. At that time, I shared a two bedroom apartment with three other girls and yes, it was hell. So during those two years, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say I spent the majority of my time at Josie’s house when I wasn’t at school or working. I had started my undergraduate studies at the local University and I worked at Cows on evenings and weekends. I often had to work late shifts and instead of taking a cab home, Josie often offered to come and get me. I can still see her waiting in the car for me on Queen’s Street. We’d go back to her place and would sit up watching late night TV, and I always stayed for the night. We had so many great chats and of course a lot of laughs. She was so easy to be with and she made me feel so loved. I am so grateful for those memories and for that time in my life.

At a very young age Josie was diagnosed with Chron’s Disease and it was a bad case from the outset. She had countless surgeries numerous periods of remission. When Josie was well, the world was hers. But when she was sick, she was naturally like a different person. The large doses of prednisone she took over the years resulted in her bones becoming very brittle very quickly. A number of effects and side effects from Chron’s Disease ultimately took their toll and Josie died in September of 1997. She left us much sooner than she should have, but we knew she was in a much better place. Her final days in this world were incredibly difficult and painful for her.

This time every September, I inevitably think of Josie. I think of her beautiful brown sparkling eyes and her laughter. I think of her manicured nails that often held a cigarette in place. I think of her and my mother sitting at our kitchen table in Greenwich talking and laughing. I think of all the good times and positive things, and am not sad because I truly believe she is in a better place. And I know she is still talking, laughing and making friends easily.

Dark Side of the Sun

I’ve always loved history. Looking back, I now realize I’ve always had a preference for social history. I avoided military history at all costs in University and remember being annoyed at the ‘guns and boats’ history students (mostly boys) who felt nothing else mattered in the grand scheme of things.

My grandfather Eugene Francis Rossiter served in WWI. It wasn’t until his war medals surfaced ca. ten years ago did I experience my first flicker of interest in military history. Once it became a personal story I could relate to, I saw military history in a completely different light. I placed an order for his Attestation Papers from Library and Archives Canada (that are now available online) and it provided me with more information than I had ever previously known about him.


His regimental number was 713255 and he enlisted on May 30th, 1916, when he was nineteen years old. My Grandfather served in the 105th Battalion along with many other Island men during WWI and he saw battle in France. Because my grandfather died when my father was only ten months old, we know very little about him. I was therefore grateful for every little piece of information gleaned from these papers – including the fact that like me he had “grey” eyes.



For Christmas, my brother Peter gave me the book Dark Side of the Sun by Michael Palmer. The book is about the author’s grandfather George Palmer and the Canadian Prisoners of War (POWs) in Hong Kong, and subsequently in the Omine Camp in Kyushu, Japan. It just so happens that George Palmer is from my hometown, St. Peters Bay. So again, this is story concerning military history is one that I had a connection to.

I babysat for George’s son Norbert and his daughter Joan – seven of his grandchildren in total. And a lot of those evenings where spent in his old home – the Palmer homestead in Cable Head. Before George passed away in 1991, my Mother (a nurse) did private duty with him in Souris hospital. I remember babysitting for Norbert and Mary the weekend of George’s wake and funeral. As I read this book I thought of all these connections but realized I knew nothing of George himself.

I had always heard that George would seldom talk of his war time experiences. I knew that he had been a POW in Japan and that was about it. I remember telling his daughter Joan that I was going to Japan to teach English. She responded be counting to ten in Japanese. I asked her how she knew to do that and she said her father George had taught her (he had learned from the Japanese guards who counted the POWS several times daily). It was these accounts and memories of George’s children that Michael Palmer relied on and incorporated into the book to trace George’s military service during WWII. With his children’s memories, personal letters written by George during the war and a myriad of primary and secondary sources, Michael weaved together his grandfather’s story and it was a fascinating read.

I learned a lot reading this book. For instance, the Geneva Convention (1929) marked the first time in history the treatment of military prisoners was governed – on paper. Unfortunately for the Allied Forces, including George Palmer, who surrendered in Hong Kong on Christmas Day in 1941, Japan ignored the provisions of the Geneva Convention, as did the Soviet Union and Germany.

Descriptions of the initial Japanese POW camps in Hong Kong were shockingly bad. The lack of food, quality of food, dysentery, no running water or electricity, no medical supplies, blankets, the mice, bed bugs, mice and rat infested conditions. It was shocking to read so I can’t even begin to imagine the reality of it all. The POWs were transported to Japan and arrived in Kyushu on January 22, 1943. The Allied Prisoners of war imprisoned in Omine Camp were ‘employed’ by the Farakawa Mining Company, from January 1943 until Japan’s surrender in August of 1945. Having changed its name several times his company is still in existence and is now called the Furukawa Equipment and Metals.

The camps in Japan were not as bad as in Hong Kong, but conditions were still dire. There was never enough food. George weighed 165 pounds upon enlistment and went down to 99 pounds by 1945, having lost approximately 40% of his body weight. As the war progressed, food shortages also took their toll on the Japanese homeland. It wasn’t only the POWs who suffered. Food was scarce for civilians too. Japanese army personnel often did not get much better food than their prisoners. Red Cross parcels were a godsend for prisoners, but were rare, and often did not make it to the POWs in the Omine Camp. The Japanese camp commanders camp them for themselves in case of invasion.

My great-uncle Pius Steele was also a Japanese POW in WWII. I was always told growing up that he knew George Palmer because they had met in a POW camp. This book dispelled that story as the book provides a list of Canadian POWs in the Omine Camp and does not include Pius’ name. I am now left to question if Pius was in other POW camps near Tokyo?

One quote from the book struck me: “George just happened to survive.” I am not sure if it was that simple. Surviving the conditions George faced as a POW took a special kind of emotional, mental and physical strength. Growing up, I always heard George Palmer described as a hero in our community. After reading this book, I now understand why. This book has also left me wanting to know more of my Grandfather’s military story.