WEYBURN - Weyburn resident Betty Knibbs will be laying the first wreath at the Remembrance Day service for the Weyburn Legion on Nov. 11, as she was chosen to represent War Mothers for the annual ceremony.
Betty (short for Elsbeth) turned 90 years on Friday, and is extremely proud she has been chosen for this honour. She is hoping to have several family and friends at the service, which will include the War Mother luncheon afterward in the Vimy Room.
Her brother, Siegmund Stach, served in the Canadian Armed Forces, retiring as a warrant officer in 1982 after a distinguished career that began in the Armoured Corps in 1959.
Betty related how Siegmund and two friends were wandering around in Regina one day, and they tried to enlist with the navy and air force (which rejected them) before finding the army recruiting office, and of the three, only Siegmund was accepted for service.
“My dad was just livid when he found out he was in the army. We came to Canada to get away from war,” said Betty, noting they tried but were unable to get Siegmund out of the enlistment.
Siegmund went to Pembroke, Ont., to be trained at CFB Petawawa, then ended up in Germany as an instructor for Leopard tank drivers. As he had grown up and worked on a farm, he was one of the few able to drive a heavy, large tank, and he was trained to be a tank instructor.
He served in the Armoured Corps from 1959 to 1978, then he was a regular support staff for the Pacific area in Vancouver, and taught in the Canadian Forces Officers School from 1980 to 1982, when he retired as a warrant officer.
In addition to tank driving, he also taught orienteering and topography, and winter survival training in the Arctic and in Germany.
He served as a bylaw enforcement officer in Abbotsford from 1982 until he retired in 2000, and he continues to reside in Abbotsford.
The family was reunited with her dad in Germany after some work by the Red Cross to find him, as they had been separated some years before. Betty immigrated to Canada with her mom Anna, dad Berthold, and siblings Ursula, Kurt and Siegmund in 1951. As she was 16 when they arrived after a long journey by ship in Halifax, she did not attend school here.
The family took a train across country to Saskatchewan, and they rented a farm in the Stoughton area from Harry Richardson, a distant relative.
Betty worked briefly on a farm in the Bienfait area, then worked for a year and a half for Harry and Sally Abells in Weyburn, house-sitting and taking care of their son. Harry was the son of Bill Abells, who ran the Leader store in downtown Weyburn.
“They were so nice to me and so patient with me,” said Betty, noting that Mrs. Abells taught her English in that time.
She then worked in a café in Stoughton for a time, and first met Dale Knibbs in the store next door in December of 1954, as she was trying on a Hudson Bay coat. He came in, covered in coal dust, and said the coat looked good on her as he had one also. They struck up a friendship from that point, getting married the following April
of 1955. They lived on a farm between Griffin and Midale, and raised two children, daughter Debra and son Darwin.
Her husband Dale had two uncles who served in the Second World War, Max Brown who served with the Canadian Army, and Wesley Brown, who served in the U.S. Navy. Max is buried in Holland in Flanders cemetery, while Wesley was aboard the ship USS Oklahoma that was hit and sunk at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
A cousin of Dale was able to provide DNA, by which authorities were recently able to identify Wesley’s remains, and he was given a service in Smithland, Iowa, where he was laid to rest.
Asked how she felt to be asked to represent War Mothers for the Legion, Betty said, “I was so honoured. It’s amazing they picked me.”
She noted it is very important that the Legion is continuing its tradition of honouring those who sacrificed in wartime, and in peacetime, to serve their country.
“Younger people should never forget. I would hate to see the stories forgotten. My children should know what I went through, and what the soldiers went through,” she said, noting that she owes everything to her mom, as “she held us all together” in the years after the war until they were able to make the journey to a new life in Canada.
“I feel so grateful and feel so honoured that I can do this,” said Betty of this honour.
