Marjorie Sears Abrams

As a Lance Corporal in the WAAFs, Marjorie was a driver at Coastal Command, Northwood. There she met Squadron Leader John Werner Abrams, an American from San Francisco who had enlisted in the RCAF at the outbreak of war. They married soon after, as he was reassigned in the spring of 1944 to help with the War of the Pacific (Operational Research), and was sent to Vancouver. Marjorie, who had rarely been out of the London area before the war, followed him in October across the Atlantic, experiencing a week of seasickness and fear of submarine attack. At Pier 21, she immediately transferred to a train and spent the next week crossing Canada, watching some happy and some memorably sad drop-offs of war-brides and children. A pleasant rediscovery on ship: white bread!

Time was later spent in Middletown, Connecticut (Wesleyan University); London, England (University of London);Ottawa (Defense Research Board); Paris, France (Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe); and Toronto (University of Toronto). They had two daughters, Jacqueline Elton (translator in Toronto) and Lesley Abrams (professor at Balliol College, Oxford). John died in 1981. Marjorie lives in Toronto near her older daughter and two grand-daughters, Sarah and Elyssa.