Special Archivist Note: The End.

Hello again from Susan, Archivist at the Glenbow Archives.

You have just read the final war letter. So what happened next? Emma and Harold returned to Canada on the H.M.S. Olympic, sailing from Southampton on May 10 and arriving in Halifax on May 16, 1919. The Olympic was a sister ship of the ill-fated Titanic. It had been converted to a troop ship early in the war and brought thousands of Canadian Expeditionary Force troops home after the Armistice. I wondered how Emma, in the early months of pregnancy, coped with the crossing but discovered, sadly, that she had had a miscarriage in England before their departure.

The McGills arrived back in Calgary in early June, and Harold again took up his job as physician to the Sarcee (Tsuu T’ina) reserve on the edge of the city. Emma was soon pregnant with their first child, Kathleen, shortly followed by their second daughter, Doris. In 1930s the family moved to Ottawa where Harold was appointed Director of Indian Affairs. They retired to British Columbia in 1945. Harold died in 1961 and Emma in 1971.

Harold’s war memoirs have recently been edited by Marjorie Barron Norris and published as Medicine and Duty. It is a good read and I highly recommend it.