Captured Hearts

Imagine you’re a young woman caught up in the ugly reality of war. You meet and fall in love with a young soldier from a foreign country. You marry and your world is upended: when the war ends, you leave all you’ve ever known behind — your family, friends, and way of life — to begin a new life in Canada.

This is the story of hundreds of women who made their way to New Brunswick at the end of the Second World War. Between 1942 and 1948, young women from all over Europe came to this part of Canada with their servicemen husbands. Some married Aboriginal New Brunswickers; others married French-speaking Acadians; still others married New Brunswickers of British descent. In this compelling volume, wives, widows, fiancées, and those who and returned to Europe after failed marriages tell compelling stories of prejudice, perseverance, kindness, hope, defeat and triumph.

Captured Hearts is volume 12 in the New Brunswick Military History Series.

AUTHOR

Melynda Jarratt

Melynda Jarratt is internationally recognized as the leading expert on Canada’s war brides and is the author of three books on the subject. In 1995, Melynda wrote her master’s thesis in history at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton on New Brunswick war brides, and went on to obtain a diploma in digital media and design in 1999. She has continued to document this fascinating chapter in Canadian military history for nearly thirty years. She is the co-author of Voices of the Left Behind (Dundurn Press, 2005), which was a Book of the Month Club selection, author of War Brides: The Stories of the Women Who Left Everything Behind to Follow the Men They Loved (Tempus Publishing, 2007; reissued by Dundurn Press, 2009), and of Captured Hearts: New Brunswick’s War Brides (New Brunswick Military Heritage Project and Goose Lane Editions, 2008). Melynda has also written on the history of Dutch immigration to Canada for Pier 21, and in 2012 she wrote the history of Bathurst’s Brunswick Mines, entitled The End of an Era. Melynda has been the curator and outreach officer for the New Brunswick Sports Hall of Fame in Fredericton since 2012.

Reviews

Imagine you’re a young British or European woman caught up in the dramatic reality of war. You fall in love with and marry a soldier from a foreign country. When the war ends, you leave behind all you’ve ever known — family, friends, and way of life — for a new life in Canada. This is the story of nearly two thousand war brides who made their way to New Brunswick to join their servicemen husbands at the end of the Second World War. Arriving in a mainly rural province, these city girls faced culture shock, and social, religious and linguistic differences that would have tested the mettle of many relationships. More than sixty years later, their stories paint a compelling portrait of love, passion, perseverance, and hope in a world torn apart by war.