Some time back I wrote about Australian war brides travelling to the U.S. at the cessation of hostilities after WW2. One of them was Betty Kane from the small wheatbelt town of Wagin. Her grand-daughters much later formed a band, The Waifs, and wrote a song about her and the trip across Australia to Sydney to board the Monterey for a sea voyage to meet her husband in the U.S.. The song, Bridal Train, was in the top 50 in 2004 and a won the band a major songwriters prize in the U.S.in 2006. Bridal Train was also dedicated to all the other Australian war brides making the trip courtesy of the U.S. Government. Betty Kane recently died and a moving obitiary was yesterday published in our local paper.
She and her husband returned to Western Australia. He died in 2001 and she settled in Albany on the South Coast of W.A..
I have met another war bride who lives quite close to me here. I have thought of writing up her story for ABC radio. It would be most interesting to hear how the brides settled in with with their in-laws in the U.S.. I would think that there would have been some difficult times for some of them.
1 comment:
There are many such stories to be told about this time in the history of our country. Although just normal women having regular lives, collectively their stories are being remembered more and more by the next generation.
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