Lost soldier's last letter home

PARRY SOUND – The aching loneliness in Second World War Sgt. Wilmer Stinson’s words are palpable through the wrinkled and yellowed paper.
They were the last words his family heard from him.
After moving her mother, Barbara Coles, 94, into Belvedere Heights Home for the Aged, Gail Chowns happened upon the three-page letter and a photograph of Stinson taken before he headed overseas.
Coles is married to Norris Coles, (deceased) who was a first cousin of Stinson.
“When she was moving into Belvedere from Otter Lake I put a lot of stuff into a bin, I found this, and I’ve had the letter with the picture and I just thought Remembrance Day is coming, and this is such a wonderful story,” said Chowns Friday afternoon.
Stationed in England in the summer of 1943, the young pilot with the Royal Canadian Air Force wrote to his family in Hockley Valley, talking of the landscape in Scotland, the cost of dinner and dancing and his yearning to have a water fight with his cousin, Norris.
“We are at a summer resort here, which is really swell,” wrote Stinson in his August 4, 1943 letter home.
“We sleep in civilian hotels, come and go when we like, but will be moving out of here pretty soon to start our training. The officer said we would be finished our ops by next June. I hope he’s right. I’ve already started to count the days…. I never dreamed I’d be so lonesome over here till I got here. Boy a fellow can’t explain it. If I ever get back home I’ll never leave again. So help me, I won’t.”
Chowns said she became emotional when she read Stinson’s words.
“I cried, when I read this letter, because he’s so lonely and he never got home. It wasn’t too long after they had received the letter that they had got word that he had been killed – he’d been shot down and he was lost,” she said.
In honour of Stinson, Chowns said her parents named their first-born son, her brother, who died as an infant, John Wilmer, after the young soldier lost in the war.

•••••

Wilmer Stinson’s letter home:
Dear Norris and Bobby and Lila,
Here I am ole tops in jolly old England having my afternoon tea in YMCA. How are you all anyway? I hope fine. I am ok. I’m sorry I haven’t written sooner, but you know how it is. How is everything going along? There isn’t much to say, but still I’d rather be back home, having a good old water fight with Ern and the rest of you. However, I know that can’t be, so I have to get used to it.
We are at a summer resort here, which is really swell. We sleep in civilian hotels, come and go when we like, but will be moving out of here pretty soon to start our training. The officer said we would be finished our ops by next June. I hope he’s right. I’ve already started to count the days.
We came down through Scotland and the scenery is lovely. If I ever get a leave, I won’t go up there. The people are friendly enough, but I just don’t like them. Hearing them talk just gets on your nerves.
They have a dance hall down on the beach just like the Pally where you can dine and dance for one shilling and six pence, which in Canadian money is 30-cents. So that’s cheap enough.
I never dreamed I’d be so lonesome over here till I got here. Boy a fellow can’t explain it. If I ever get back home I’ll never leave again. So help me, I won’t.
I haven’t met anyone I know yet.
It’s just like you see in pictures, you can walk up to a bar, order a gin and lime, which is good, then walk over to a dance and you’re all out. They call beer parlors ‘pubs’ over here.
We expect to be moving pretty soon.
Well, I guess I’ll fade away for this time. I’m no good at writing long letters, or short ones either, for that matter, but it lets you know I’m ok and thinking of you.
Write soon and often. I haven’t got a letter yet, but I’d give anything to get one.
All my love,
Bill

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