A former Wallaceburg resident has penned a book, which tells the tale about his parents’ 56-month marriage during the Second World War.
Michael Dymond’s book “Ducky: Life Letters” features letters written by his father Donald during WWII, which were sent to his mother Phyllis in Ontario.
“I had written a book that was published back in 2004… a memoir about my sister and I growing up in post war Canada, mainly Chatham, without a father. I wanted to write something about that,” Dymond told the Sydenham Current.
When I was doing the research, I was talking to my Mother and asking her questions about Dad. She said ‘you might as well have these.’ So she went to her room and picked up about 250-260 letters that he had written to her over the course of the war, five years. I didn’t know she had them.”
Dymond said over the course of the next year, he read all of them.
“It was a rather daunting emotional task, but I got through them all. I decided that I needed to do something, but it wasn’t until the last 18 months to 2 years that I really got serious about writing,” he said.
Dymond said his parents were married on September 2, 1940, two months after he joined the Canadian Active Forces to be a part of their WWII efforts.
He left for training and guarding all across Canada in January 1941 and eventually for England for final war preparations in June of 1943.
His father then went off to the front in July of 1944 and was killed in action on April 30, 1945.
“They did not have a life together,” Dymond said.
“They lived their life victoriously through the letters for most of the five years that they were married. So I thought there was probably a lot of other people who had done that but since this was my Mom and Dad, I thought I needed to write something for them.”
Dymond said he included about 50 of the his father’s letters verbatim in the book.
“What I wanted to do was showcase them and I guess I expressed some opinion about how hard war is and how it sort of creeps into every ones life and no one is really left untouched by World War. I think a lot of the boys that did go to fight wanted to come to Canada,” he said.
“I tried to build it around their life, when they met, when they got married, the marriage itself, a Christmas dinner at the families house, and then to Niagara Falls for their honeymoon and then him heading off to his training. Than I brought his letters into it. That sort or sequenced through ’41-’45.”
Dymond said it was just recently the 70th anniversary of his death and was also the 70th anniversary of the end of the war, VE Day in Europe on May 10.
He released the book this year to mark both anniversary dates.
The book is available online on Amazon and in a variety of book stores.
He said he plans on doing some book signings to help promote the book.
Dymond and his wife Mary used to live in Wallaceburg and they currently live in Tuscon, Arizona.
If you would like to purchase a copy, click here.
