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Record #11351
Name :
: John VALLANCE (1925 - )


Father
:
Mother
:
BMD and other details
Date of Birth
: 1925 (approx.)

Marriage (1)
:
Marriage (2)
:

Date of Death
:
Abode (1) : Place of BirthScotland
Abode (2) : Place of Death / Burial
Sailing Information
Date of Arrival
: Jul 1939
Country
: Canada

Ship
: Empress of Australia

Placement Family
:
Homes / Agencys
Institution (GB)
:

Agency
: Barnardos
Notes[EDITORS NOTE: Taken from the Calgary Herald - {website}calgaryherald.com/Life+could+difficult+kids+sent+from+Britain/2605390/story.html]

More than 70 years have passed since John Vallance last saw his dying mother. Yet, even the mere mention of her name, Nancy, reduces the former military man to tears.

"She was only 35 years old, and I was a 12-year-old boy that wanted to help her, but couldn't do a thing," he says of the day the mother of five succumbed to a severe asthma attack. "She was a wonderful mother, and far too young to die."

Her premature death also marked the end of Vallance's life, and family, as he knew it. His father John senior, a fireman on the London Midland Scottish Railroads, could barely make ends meet when he had a wife at home tending to the children full time.

John, the eldest, was taken from his home in Newton-on-Ayr, Scotland, to Dr. Barnardo's Homes for Orphaned Children in London; his siblings were parcelled out to various relatives and orphanages.

Two years later, one of his caregivers at the orphanage asked if he would like to go to Canada.

"They showed me photographs of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the mountains," recalls the now 85-year-old. "I said 'yes,' although looking back, I don't know I had a choice."

He left Portsmouth, England, for Canada on the ship Empress of Australia with about 27 other children, his sole possessions the clothes on his back and a Barnardo Box, a steamer trunk carrying a change of clothes, a sewing kit, a Gideon Bible and a few other necessities. (In 1939, John Vallance, 12, arrived at Quebec, Canada, in a group of 27 Barnardo children en route to Toronto, Ontario, Canada.)

By summer of 1939, Vallance was a 14-year-old boy working on a farm in Ontario, an ocean away from his father, siblings and other extended relatives. "Being sent to Canada was one of the best things that happened to me," he says. "But I know that some of the others didn't have quite so good a time."

"I read stories about how some of them were tied up like dogs and lived in doghouses," says Vallance. "It is heartbreaking to learn how badly they were treated."

Although he never faced abuse from those who took him in, Vallance was haunted by not knowing what happened to his father and siblings.

"I never even had photographs of them to take to Canada," he says. "I wouldn't have known the younger ones if I bumped into them on the street."

He made a good life for himself in Canada, serving in the air force for three decades and later running a successful bar service company in Calgary. He and his wife Elizabeth, who died in 1997, raised four children in the southwest home where Vallance still lives.

"This country gave me my life," he says as he proudly shows off a wall filled with photographs of family and his exploits as a paratrooper. "If I had stayed in England, I likely would have wound up dead." 
ContributorsCreated : 2010-02-25 19:38:27 / From original database

Last Updated :

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Surnames starting with:   A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z  4 Entries        
IDNameDOBPlace of birthArrivals & ShipsDest.AgencyFamily links
23833 KIRKWOOD, Alexander1926CAN,    , Windsor Jul 1939 : Empress of Australia CAN Barnardos  
23834 KIRKWOOD, Raymond Alfred1930CAN,    , Vancouver Jul 1939 : Empress of Australia CAN Barnardos  
19096 LOVE, Mary1925ENG,     Jul 1939 : Empress of Australia CAN Barnardos  
11351 VALLANCE, John1925SCT,     Jul 1939 : Empress of Australia CAN Barnardos