Louis Antoine Heroux – told by his son Charles

Louis Antoine Heroux was born December 5, 1920, in St. Vital, Manitoba, the 6th of 8 children, to Augustine and Charles Heroux.  They were a farm family, but Dad moved away when he was 14, to live with his oldest sister, who had gotten married and moved to Winnipeg.

He worked in an abattoir until the war came, and he was able to enlist in the RCNVR in 1940.  I have donated all his records (the originals) to the Georgina Military Museum, so I do not have the details of his career, but will try to give as much as I can from memory.  He did go to England for training, but returned to North America and spent the bulk of the war as part of a Corvette crew assembling convoys, and sailing between Halifax, St. John’s, and New York City.  During his time he trained as a sonar operator (he called it ASDIC, I believe) to detect German Submarines. 

Whenever they got to New York, they got 48 hours leave, and Dad said they did not sleep, going up and down Broadway from one night club to another, listening to all the Big Bands.  As Canadian sailors they never had to buy a drink, and it gave him (and me) a love for that genre of music.

My mother worked in Toronto.  Their office sent Christmas packages to sailors, and he got hers one year.  He wrote to thank her and a correspondence started.  When he finally got leave, he came through Toronto on the way back to Manitoba, and did a number of times, and they fell in love.  She refused to marry while the war was on, and he wanted to hurry it up, so they ultimately agreed to marry August 15, 1945.  He claimed after that that she always got her own way, even ending the war to get it.  Dad was discharged shortly after that, I believe with a rank of Petty Officer.

They settled in Toronto, and struggled because once I was born (the eldest) in 1947 she had to quit work—day care was impossible to find.  With Dad not even completing grade 9 he was frequently unemployed as well.  I was the oldest of 5 children.

He found his footing in a career as a milkman for the Borden Dairy Company, and did that job until the industry died, killed off by Beckers and other corner stores.  He got into related food transportation work, and retired in 1985.

Mom passed in 2001, and Dad in 2007.

We thank him for his service.

We will remember them.