The Watch And The War

It was a rather attractive lady’s pocket watch that had been a gift to my grandmother from an admirer.  Improbably then finding its way into the trenches of World War I, the watch would be returned to her almost half a century later.

The hinged back of the case bears the inscription of “To Beat From Joe Xmas 1911”.  Joe had been an ultimately unsuccessful was a now long forgotten suitor of my paternal grandmother Beatrice Maude (Clarke)
Arntfield (1896 – 1987).  She would have not yet been sixteen at the time when she received what would not have been an inexpensive gift.  Joe, it appears, may have been somewhat smitten.

My grandmother had immigrated to Canada in 1906 from Luton, England with her parents.  Initially settling London, Ontario, by 1907, the family had moved to Stephenfield, near Carman, Manitoba to join her three brothers who had been settled there a few years before as farm labourers.  By 1911 
Beatrice was there on her own keeping house for her brothers, her father and sister having died and her mother having remarried and returned to London.

Clearly my grandmother had made an impression on Joe.  During her lifetime she only referred to him as an admirer without sharing more.  The watch dial is imprinted with the maker’s name, Regina, below which is the name of the shop where it was purchased, J.B. Cochran, Carman, Man. imprinted below.  The watch movement was made by the Omega Watch Company of Switzerland which at the time marketed its products in Canada under the Regina name. 

The watch movement has been placed, as was the custom, in its own separate case, a gold filled case made by the American Watch Case Company of Canada.  A jeweller who examined the watch’s concealed serial number has confirmed its vintage to proximate the year of 1911 when it was gifted. It would be customary for young ladies to wear such watches as a sort of pendant with a gold chain.

One of my grandmother’s brothers was Harry Clark(e) (1886 -1980).  On February 1, 1916, still living in Manitoba, he enlisted to serve in World War I.  Prior to being shipped overseas, he visited Beatrice who by then had returned to London.  Conversation turned to the fact that Harry, for some reason, did not have a watch with him.  My grandmother offered to lend him the watch Joe had given her those several years before.

Harry then shipped out, watch in hand, to begin his overseas service.  The watch accompanied him throughout the war, first in England and then in the trenches of Mons and Ypres where Harry served and was wounded.  The watch then accompanied him back to England and ultimately British Columbia where he finally settled.

During the late fifties or early sixties Harry paid a visit to London to see his sister.  Conversation, as it does with families, turned to times past.  Casually my grandmother, never having really given the matter a second thought in the intervening years, asked Harry if he still had her watch.  He indicated that only did he still have the watch but that it still kept perfect time.  He arranged shortly after to have it shipped back to her.  Joe’s Christmas gift of 1911 was at last back in its owner’s hands about half a century after that first Christmas in Manitoba.

In subsequent years my grandmother gifted the watch to my own mother who frequently wore it as intended as a neck pendant with a gold chain.  She has since given it to me.  It eventually stopped keeping time but a trip to the jewellers in 2010, some ninety-nine years after its last such visit, has restored it to working condition.  Joe’s thoughtful gift of 1911 is now an heirloom with a unique family history.

                                                                                                                          David Arntfield