My Father’s Letters

Framed by the violence and chaos of a global conflict is my parents’ love story, touchingly told in a series of letters from Max to Rosaleen from the day after they met in 1941 to my mother’s disembarkation in Halifax from the Queen Mary as a war bride in 1946.Max Stiebel, one of five sons of German immigrants to Canada, was born and raised in Montreal, Quebec becoming one of the thousands of young men who enlisted in defense of Britain at the start of the Second World War. Trained as a pilot, he was deployed to England in March 1941 and spent the next five years transporting supplies, weaponry, troops and VIPs to all corners of Europe and the Middle East.Rosaleen Hill, daughter of a World War I war hero and the repatriated great-great-grand-daughter of British emigrants to India grew to adulthood in the south of England, studied music and literature and had ambitions to be a teacher. The onset of war changed all that, as it did with an entire generation of young women like her, and she went to work in support of her country’s efforts to preserve its sovereignty against an aggressive and implacable foe.Their unique family histories and the wartime backdrop, interspersed with vintage and family photographs, provide warmth and illumination, while their passion for each other in a time of strife still inspires.