Editor’s Note: During the First World War, Pte Cecil Minary served in the CEF, beginning his military training at Camp Hughes prior to being shipped to England for additional training. He saw his first action in France soon after Canada’s involvement in the Battle of Vimy Ridge in April 1917. His great-great-niece Kendra Minary from Souris spent the COVID pandemic going through the original letters he wrote home from England and France prior to being KIA on Aug. 28, 1918. The Lewis gunner died on the battlefield after his crew was hit by a German artillery shell. The Stag’s website will share Kendra’s great-great-uncle’s letters with our viewers here to give you a peek at what a soldier was contemplating with pencil and paper while in the UK training or in France in a trench waiting for the next attack or counter-attack. Pte Minary’s letters are transcribed as they were written by Kendra, so this includes his spelling, grammar and punctuation mistakes. Of note, from his letters home he rarely described his clashes with Fritz, instead preferring to enquire about life on the family farm in Nesbitt or what his family and friends were doing back in Manitoba. Unlike some some soldiers who would share their war stories in their always censored letters, Pte Minary had his own distinct writing style no matter if the letter was for his his dad, sister or a relatives. He also made the job of Army censors easier by not including war details which would be censored by being blacked out. That’s the reason why his letters are “somewhere in France” once he left England for the Western Front. Those original letters are stored at the Wawanesa Museum.
B. Coy Sunday April 21st 1918
Dear Sister
Hello Mae and how are you and everyone at home jake-a-loo I hope, just like myself at present. Your letter of March sixteenth arrived last night with Dad’s five spot in it and thanks awfully dad, for I am just jake for money now, all the other lads around here are dead Broke just now, as the Battalion has not been paid for quite awhile I am fattening right up now, doing nothing but talking all day and having a good feed of eggs and chips every evening, something unusual for me though.
I am still at the same job as when I wrote last Sunday, explaining the mysteries of the Lewis Machine Gun, I have two different classes to teach one in the four noon and another in the afternoon, six days a week. I am writing this before church Parade so as to get it away in todays mail. The weather here is kind of a zig zag affair, cold and windy one day, and warm and mild the next. Today happens to be one of the latter, so things are not so bad.
I got a letter and a parcel from Maggie Smith last night, the parcel like all good things here did not last very long, everything was fine and dandy by her letter.
The Boys I guess will be as busy as bees these days putting the crops in, have they started any ball practice yet, they are playing some Baseball around here now, a bunch of Canadians are playing some Yankees this afternoon and I think I’ll be over to watch it, I have been playing football these last few evenings, some footballer eh?
Be sure Mae that you send those snaps that you spoke of for I will be on the watch for them. I’ll have to sign off now as the Boys are passing some remarks about it being Parade time and that I had better cut all that love stuff to that little girl of mine pretty short string again eh Mae.
So Bye Bye with love to all
Cecil Minary xxx
