Times & Transcript article forged a link across generations

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Back in 2005, a woman named Catherine Bentley wrote to us from England seeking the Times & Transcript's help.

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Garry Grant, Tony Abbott and Ron 'Gerry' Gerelli stand outside the Highfield Street home of Charles and Mable Stewart during the Second World War. They were just three of dozens of British airmen Mable Stewart mothered during the war years, and she was just one of hundreds of Monctonians who opened their homes to the thousands of RAF men who passed through the city in the 1940s.

Her uncle, British RAF veteran Ronald 'Gerry' Gerelli, had been one of the thousands of British airmen who spent time in Moncton during the Second World War.

He was also one of dozens of airmen who enjoyed the mothering of a kind lady named Mable Stewart during their time at 31 PD Depot, the massive RAF receiving centre near where the Victory Industrial Park and Harrison Trimble High School stand today.

Mostly Catherine wanted to share a draft chapter of the memoirs her uncle was writing at the time, but she also told us he would love to find any of Mable and her husband Charles Stewart's descendants.

Complicating that a bit was the fact that in the more formal 1940s, Gerry Gerelli knew the kindly older couple simply as, "Mr. and Mrs. Stewart," despite spending at least one Christmas at the Stewarts' home and even taking weekend trips out to a farmstead the family had in Albert County.

In an interview with the Times & Transcript, Gerry also recalled the Stewarts lived on, "a wide avenue, with large timber and brick houses all along it. We used to walk past there to go down into the centre of town."

While that could have been any number of streets in the Victoria Park area, it was enough of a clue, when combined with a 1940s-era city directory we have kicking around in the Times & Transcript's literally dusty archives, to lead to a duplex on Highfield Street.

With the help of most of the Stewarts in Metro Moncton, and the vivid memories of Moncton barrister George B. Cooper, who happened to grow up in the other half of the Stewarts' duplex, which George's father owned, we eventually filled in a lot of blanks.

We ran a story about all that four years ago.

Now we are happy to report our story has led to a friendship between Gerry and Mable's grandchildren, Bruce Stewart of Riverview, and his sister Janet Lindstrom of Kenora, Ontario.

Unfortunately, our original story ran without Bruce and Janet's help. Bruce was, in fact, one of the many local area Stewarts we called in 2005, but he didn't get our phone message until after the story of the British airman's search ran in the Times & Transcript.

Bruce and Janet's aunt Evelyn Stewart was, however, interviewed for that story from her home in Nova Scotia. Bruce reports Evelyn just celebrated her 93rd birthday and, through her, he and his sister now have numerous photographs and other mementoes of the so many young airmen their grandmother cared for while her own son Ward (Evelyn's husband) was overseas. Among those mementoes is the photograph of Flight Sergeant Gerelli with his brothers-in-arms Tony Abott and Garry Grant that runs with this story.

While Gerry lost track of Sgt. Grant after their Canadian training was over and they all went to war, he and Tony Abbot remained lifelong friends. Though his whereabouts today aren't known, a search of British military records suggests Garry Grant survived the war as well.

It was remarkable that the three friends should all survive their time in bomber command, as the odds of dying were almost 50-50 during those dark nights over Europe.

True to his word in 2005, and though he admits the years have slowed him down, the now 89-year-old Gerry Gerelli finally finished his memoir of his experiences as a rear gunner on a Lancaster Bomber.

Also true to his word, he included a concluding appendix to his book paying tribute to Mable and Charles Stewart and the warm spot he has carried for Moncton all of his life. He sent a copy of his book, Three Stripes and a Wing, to Mable's grandchildren just a few months ago, and Bruce shared a copy with the Times & Transcript recently.

Looking back more than six decades later, he ends his book speaking directly to Mable, who died about a decade after the war.

"Dear Lady, from those who are left, we shall always remember how your kindness brightened those dark days."