A Port Alberni Mountie fulfilled a lifelong wish of a local senior citizen by visiting her at the Ty Watson Hospice House on June 28.
Jenny Stewart, 88, now a resident at Ty Watson House, saw her first RCMP officer dressed in his Red Serge in 1938, at the Empire Exhibition in Edinburgh, Scotland. She was 11 years old and she remembers that moment as the one that sealed her decision to one day become a resident of Canada.
She received this opportunity in 1945 when she married a Canadian soldier in Scotland, and six months later sailed on the ocean liner RMS Aquitania to Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Stewart was one of nearly 44,000 war brides to immigrate to Canada from Europe between 1942-48.
Through the years Stewart never forgot that parade in Edinburgh. When she mentioned to the nursing staff at the hospice that she had always wanted to meet a Mountie dressed in formal Red Serge, staff members contacted the RCMP to set up a meeting, Const. Jen Allan related in a press release.
While sipping tea at Ty Watson house, Macleod listened with great interest as Stewart talked about her late husband and their life together in their newly adopted homeland.
Photographs were taken to mark this exciting moment in Stewart’s life, and both she and Macleod smiled proudly in every photograph, Allan noted.
As Macleod left Ty Watson House hours later, he marveled once again at the impact his iconic and historical red uniform continues to have on Canadians and those around the world.