Marjorie Her War Years

Her family broken apart and her identity taken away, she had to forget her past in order to face her future. But forgetting isn’t forever.

Taken from their mother’s care and deported from England to the colonies, Marjorie Arnison and her nine-year-old brother, Kenny, were sent to the Prince of Wales Fairbridge Farm School on Vancouver Island in September 1937. Their eight-year-old sister, Audrey, followed the next August.

Marjorie''s new home was an isolated farm, in a cottage with at least ten other girls, with a “cottage mother” at the head. Cottage mothers had complete control over their “children” like Marjorie.

Survival meant sticking to bare essentials, and that meant accepting a loss Marjorie found hard to forgive. Turning inward, she would find strength that pulled her through, but she had to lock away her memories in order to endure her new life.

Marjorie was well into her senior years before those memories resurfaced.