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facts & arguments

Whatever happened to Had and Dody? J.E. Hewitt tries to unravel the mystery of a wartime love letter

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It is Nov. 28, 1917, and Belleville, Ont., already has snow, "lots of it." So writes Dody Vermilyea, no doubt perched on an ornate chair at her writing desk, wrapped in a shawl. She's run upstairs for privacy after receiving Had Gordon's letter and is now regretting this cold choice while glancing through the frost-ferned window at the thickly falling snow.

Had's left for Texas. The cold has forced the pilots south to complete their Royal Flying Corps training, as more than one boy has been sacrificed to ice-coated wings before coming anywhere near enemy territory. Dody asks what the weather in Fort Worth is like, then teases Had, telling him they'll be skating soon, asking if he's not sorry he had to go.

The letter is yellowed now, the envelope stained and mealy around the edges. It's gone through God knows what before coming home in a box of personal effects after my great-uncle Alexander Innes Reid was buried at Vimy Ridge. The letter has been passed down through my family, its adventures ending in my drawer.

But it's not mine. We don't know Dody, or Had. Why did the letter come to us, instead of the rightful family? The reasons are now lost in the past. But I want the letter to find its way home.

Dody writes: She and a friend have recently been all the way to Kingston for the Royal Military College dance, where the hall was done up specially to look like a garden tea party. The friend didn't have a dress, so they made one – isn't Had surprised at their ingenuity? It was pretty, too, long and flowing, not so much a nod to fashion as due to their lack of tailoring skills.

One hundred years doesn't seem so long ago when I read Dody's funny, flirtatious letter. Even with the time that's passed, studying her confidential thoughts feels like an invasion. She caps the first page with her own address, like the whisper of a clue in my ear. Does her house still stand? And is there a chance its occupants could help me find Dody's descendants?

I picture the girls gathering for the party like colourful birds, chattering as they leave for the train station, when I knock on the door. The yellow brick, the solid, square style, the French doors opening onto a front parlour, suggest it isn't so very changed from 100 years ago. The windows on the second floor, where Dody likely sat to write her letter, peek over the covered porch roof. A young man answers, home for the summer afternoon with little children; a trike, balls and a plastic play table rest in a jumble on the porch floor. Yes – I show him the address – this is the place. But they rent the house – he's not a long-lost relative. No, he doesn't know anyone connected to Dody.

Mother, Dody writes, thinks her too frank and childish – not exactly a compliment, she complains tartly – but she can forgive Mother's judgment, as Mother has thankfully forgiven the late – or was it early? – hour she arrived home after the send-off party for Had and his comrades. Perhaps it's best she warn him that Mother may be right. She lets Had in on a secret: The photographer Mother and Father commissioned insisted that she and her sister have individual portraits done. This means, although she's not sure it's proper, she has a photo to send him, if he will promise to destroy the ugly little snapshot he now carries.

It turns out Dody's mother's family kept a record book, offered by the enthusiastic staff at the Community Archives of Belleville and Hastings County. There she is: Emma Faulkner, who married Edward Vermilyea and settled in Belleville. They had six children: Frederick, Roy, Molly, Gladys, Doris (Dody) and Gerald. By 1917, a massive tax ledger indicates, only three children still live at home. Were Dody's older brothers fighting in a far-away land?

I find Had, too. C.W. Hunt's book Dancing in the Sky explains the devastating appeal of the cockpit to young men keen on adventure, even if taking to the air in glorified crates held together with piano wire. Despite 3:45 a.m. wake-up calls, the novice pilots were keen for nightly fun, and at Camp Deseronto, the men, restricted from certain entertainments by the Ontario Temperance Act, were lucky to have an excellent pianist among them: Harry (Had) Gordon, who took requests and hosted singalongs.

I can imagine how a charismatic, talented young man attracted our letter writer's admiration. But off he went to war. From Belleville to Texas, and from there Had disappears. I can't find him in the Canadian Military registry. All we have is Dody's letter, which he must have carried with him overseas. Perhaps it passed through many boys' hands on its way home to the girl he might have married. But she never got it back.

The microfiche whirs. The Belleville Intelligencer announces Dody's marriage: Doris Miriam Vermilyea married Robert Davy Macaulay on Oct. 30, 1924, a man from Dawson, Yukon. How did they meet? And did she sometimes still secretly pine for Had?

The new couple travelled to and settled in Vancouver, then their names appear on the ship's roll over several voyages to Alaska, along with their son Charles. After a stint as a seaman, the Belleville newspaper announcement of Charles's 1952 marriage lists his widowed mother as a resident of Mexico City.

Dody's adventures were just beginning when she penned her sweet note. Had's adventures, it seems, would soon end forever. How lucky I am that mine continue unmarred by such twists and tragedies, allowing me time to persist down the rabbit hole of genealogical searches.

I hope to find Dody's or Had's next of kin. We could talk about the extraordinary lives of 100 years ago, both those who went to war and those who waited at home. Lest we forget.

J.E. Hewitt lives in Elora, Ont.