Becky Forshaw Angus

Becky Pickup Angus (nee Forshaw) was born in Dumbartonshire, Scotland in 1911. In 1941, she met her soon-to-be-husband, Albert "Chub" Angus, while he was on leave from his station in southern England. He was from rural Manitoba, and had enlisted with his younger brother Jim in the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders at the outbreak of hostilities. She was 31 when they met, and he was 34.

Their marriage had a very fragile beginning. Chub's military records reveal that he only had three one-week opportunities to get to know her before they married on April 6, 1942 in the Kilmaronock parish church in Gartocharn, near Loch Lomond. Shortly afterwards, on August 19th, 1942, Chub was sent into action at Dieppe and captured. He spent the next 32 months as a POW, so they came to know each other primarily through correspondence for the first three years of their marriage. Chub kept a diary in which he frequently wrote about how much Becky's letters meant to his spirits.

Chub was liberated on May 2nd, 1945 and was repatriated to Canada in July, where he was immediately hospitalized. He continued to suffer health problems throughout his life as a result of his wartime experience.

Becky said goodbye to Scotland later that Fall, and arrived at Pier 21 on November 23rd, 1945. She often recounted the difficult crossing, but also the foods that she hadn't enjoyed since the war had broken out. She remembered the helpfulness of the Red Cross personnel, especially with those war brides who had children. She remembered the long, long train ride, through Quebec City and Montreal, and then across the vast sparseness of northern Ontario. When would it never end!

She was reunited with Chub in Winnipeg, and they finally began their life as a couple by spending their first winter in Manitoba with Chub's family. A nephew in the household recalled what it was like for her:

"Aunt Becky stayed with us one winter in our log house, I guess when Chub had to spend so much time in Deer Lodge [the veteran's hospital in Winnipeg]. With her twinkly smile and wit she was fun to have around. I loved her accent. Somewhere in one of our family albums is a picture of Becky in midday wearing an aviator's helmet with the wooly earflaps down, under a pile of blankets on our couch. She told me years later that she had never felt so cold in her life as she had that winter. In our house in the winter you had to rotate in front of the stove if you wanted to keep evenly warm. I remember at one of the parties she did a Highland sword dance having to settle for using a couple of broom handles. I must say that she made the most of it; it can't have been easy coming to new country and having to stay with a strange family."

Having come from such a picturesque part of Scotland, with its many lochs and hills, Becky found the prairie landscape and climate too harsh and bleak for her liking. In 1945, she and Chub relocated to Fort William, Ontario (now Thunder Bay) where they became caretakers of a large tourist camp along the shore of Lake Superior. It was here that they finally were able to build their life together as a couple, and as a family (two sons were born - Iain in 1947, and Murray in 1950). The marriage that had started out on such fragile ground, proved to be a good one for each of them, and they built a successful and very happy life together.

It came to an end prematurely on November 3rd, 1959, however, when Chub died suddenly of a heart attack while at work in the park. Becky carried on as manager of the Tourist Camp for another decade, with the help of her sons, and retired in 1971. She lived the rest of her days quietly in her "wee hoose" by the shore of her beloved Lake Superior. She died on May 19th, 1983.