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Three friends are sitting around a table in the basement of the Royal Canadian Legion Branch in St. James, Winnipeg, drinking coffee.
Over the past two decades, Violet Wall has been here almost every morning with her friends Allan and Rita Barker – a ritual that included her husband, Ed, until his death a year ago.
"One day at a time," said Wall, when asked how she was managing the loss of her husband.
Wall says it's the company she finds in the legion that makes her come back.
"I feel welcome," she said. "It's a very nice place and you feel very comfortable sitting down and having a coffee, a meal or whatever, and it's more friendly than going to a cafe, all by yourself . "
Wall, like most members of the Legion recently Wednesday morning, is an elderly person.
And while the Royal Canadian Legion – and this branch in particular – has a long history, its future is a little less certain.
The St. James Branch of the Royal Canadian Legion is the largest in the province and still has about 1,100 members. He is from the No.1 branch of the Great War Veterans Association, established in 1917. He will become the No. 4 branch of the British Empire Service League in 1926 and will move at about the same time to his current location on the Portage Avenue.
Ronn Anderson has been with the St. James Branch since 1993. (Cameron MacLean / CBC)
Ronn Anderson, who served in Germany from 1968 to 1976, became a member of the branch executive in 1993. At the time, he had declared that there were still some veterans of the First World War and many veterans of the Second World War.
Today, all World War I veterans are dead, the number of World War II veterans is rapidly declining and young veterans of the war in Afghanistan and peacekeeping missions of Canada have not joined the number of previous generations.
"A few of them have joined, but we find that today, veterans are more involved in daily life and the mode of survival, if you will," he said. -he declares.
"You know, everyone has to take care of two jobs and his family, and we understand that, but we continue to actively seek out the youngest veterans to join the Royal Canadian Legion and help us do the same thing: helping our elders fighters. "
For now, it's still an important meeting place for older members of the legion, like Violet Wall. And many of them have more and more first-hand memories of the wars Canada has fought and stories to share.
Her husband served in the Naval Reserves and two of her older brothers fought during the Second World War. She remembers being a teenager when they went abroad.
"I think I never thought about it because I was so young," she said. "You just accept it – it was war."
After their return, she says that her brothers did not talk much about their experiences of the war.
"I'm glad we do not have news coverage at that time because it would be very difficult."
"We are very lucky to have won"
While Wall and his friends sipped their coffee, a group of men gathered around some of the pool tables on the other side of the room. Among them is 88-year-old Cliff Cooke, whom some people call "Cookie" playfully.
"Because of the" e "in the end," laughs Cooke.
Cliff Cooke likes to come to the Legion to play billiards. (Cameron MacLean / CBC)
A member of the navy for 20 years, Cooke joined the Legion 45 years ago. He says that it is the company of his "comrades" that drives him to want to come back.
The St. James Branch will hold its annual Remembrance Day ceremony at Bruce Park on Sunday. This Remembrance Day has special significance for Cooke as it is the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War, he said.
"We are very lucky to have won a hundred years ago, it was a struggle," he said.
Hart Kapitoler, who also plays billiards in the Legion, has very different connections to World War II than most Canadians. His father was enlisted in the German army and died as a result of an isolated sniper bullet while he was fighting on the Russian front, five months after the birth of Kapitoler.
He jokes that at one point he may have been offended at having a German in the legion – but that time is up.
"They are kind enough not to want me," he says.
The father of Kapitoler Hart was enlisted in the German army and died while he was fighting on the Russian front at the age of five months. (Cameron MacLean / CBC)
Rick Gustafson has spent much of his time in the Navy Reserves at the hospital, to cure various ailments, including pneumonia and food poisoning. Despite this, he remembers very well his stay on the reserve.
"Nobody's as amused as me," he says.
Gustafson was playing the bbad drum in a brbad band and people began to tease him by comparing him to the Energizer Bunny.
"So we had dinner one night with a lot of Shriners and Scottish Rites, and everybody, and they wanted our group to play after supper, which is what we did." I disguised myself in rabbit Energizer, "he said.
Rick Gustafson says that no one has had more fun than on the naval reserves, despite having spent a lot of time in the hospital for various ailments. (Cameron MacLean / CBC)
It's such memories that the Royal Canadian Legion hopes to create a new generation of members.
Anderson, who says the Legion has been part of his life since his retirement in 1998, says it's a good feeling to be part of the Legion.
"It gives me a real sense of satisfaction to have accomplished something, to help my fellow veterans and those who preceded me."
With files from Nadia Kidwai
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