Marie

Content note: This story includes reflections on a hostage situation, threats of violence, and loss.

I was born in Kingston along with my two brothers. During the Second World War, the Delta Airport was an Air Force base—the highest security base in Canada. There were 15 families. We went out there in 1952, and the house wasn’t even ready, so we had to stay in a hotel in Ladner.

My first six years of school were in BC. They only had a Protestant school on the base, but we were Catholic, so I took a bus to a monastery outside of Ladner. I left the house at 7 o'clock in the morning and didn’t get home until 5 at night. The school bus was also not allowed onto the road through the base, so I had to walk across the base and along the road to the guard house. I liked going to the monastery. It was a farm monastery, so we had nuns teaching us, and we got to help out on the farm, like climbing trees and picking apples.

From BC, we moved to Ottawa for two years, and my brother was killed. My dad got a transfer to Kingston to get us out of Ottawa—it was a compassionate transfer. And then we’ve been here ever since.

My father worked in the military, so we ended up in BC. He was with the Army Signal Corps, so he did all the messaging. There were days that I never saw my father because money was not that good, and he worked shift work, so when he wasn’t at work, he would go work another job.

I’m alone now because my husband died in February 2018. We had a house, and I just sold it in September 2024. Moving was very difficult because we had to get rid of a lot of stuff, but now I have underground parking and I don’t have to worry about the ramp, unlike before when I had to find someone to do snow removal and cut the grass. The apartment is very central. Just down the street is the shopping centre, and around the corner is my library. I don't miss the house. It doesn't look like my house anyway. An investor bought it and turned the house into three apartments and the garage into another.

When I was 15, I got my first job as a part-time cashier for Dominion, which is now owned by Metro. I worked Thursday and Friday night, all day Saturday, and throughout the summer. Then, when I graduated high school, I got an office job with Bell Canada. I only worked for them for not quite three years, and I was up for promotion. I had the seniority, but didn’t get it and walked right out back to Dominion. At that time, my youngest son was born, and I already had two children. My husband also worked for Dominion, so we only had one day a week together, and I worked until 10 o’clock, so I never got to see the baby awake. We split up, and then I met my current husband about three years later.

I decided to take two weeks of vacation and got a job with Correctional Service Canada. I started in April 1974, and on February 2nd, 1976, I was held hostage for 37 and a half hours by an inmate. It was in the paper, and you would find articles today if you went to the library. The inmate should have been in protective custody, but he was in the general population. He was 19 years old and doing three life sentences for rape. The first one was one of his teachers.

It all happened because people didn’t do their job. I shared an office with another girl, but she was in another building that day, so I was by myself. My back was facing the door, so he came in and put his hand over my mouth and held an X-ACTO knife to my throat. At first, I thought it was a joke, but he closed and locked my door and pushed a cabinet against it. One of the psychologists, a PhD student at Queen’s, came to look when she heard my door slam shut, and as soon as she stuck her head in the window, he opened the door and pulled her in. He had us lie on the floor on our stomachs and bound us up. He shouldn’t have had anything to use, but they didn’t search him, even though he had his winter coat on, and in his pocket, he had ripped bindings from his sheets.

He was demanding $9,000 and a car. I asked him, “Why $9,000? Why not $10,000?” He said, “That’s all I need.” I did talk to him, and he also had a deck of playing cards, and we played. Eventually, the warden told him that they had the money and the car.

When we got out, we had to go to the hospital, and I didn’t get released until about 5 o'clock the next day. My kids were at my parents’ place, and it was my youngest’s third birthday. I got the head guard to pick me up from the hospital and take me to the office to get my stuff. I wasn’t bothered then, but I went back a month later and then never went back to that institution.

He’s out West now. I know where he is. Every time he moves, especially when he leaves the province, they notify me. He’ll always have to report at least once a year to a parole officer. I’ll never forget it.

I was a permanent employee, so they had to move me somewhere. They put me in the finance department, which was across the street. Then, I worked at regional headquarters. I realized that if I was going to go anywhere, I had to be willing to work in an institution, so I asked to be sent to a prison for movement. I was only there for six months. You could not pay me enough to do that again. With the current warden, because they were “his girls”, he thought that they could do no wrong. The rules and regulations did not apply, and they did whatever they wanted.

I was then at the parole office and saw that there was an opening for the RCMP office. There was competition for this job. When I applied, there were three parts. There was someone temporarily working there, and when I went to see what the job was about, someone told me that I was wasting my time because she was going to get the job. And she did. But I decided to appeal it. They sent an adjudicator down from Ottawa, and he decided that we would do an oral interview with a new board. I got the job, and I didn’t believe it until the day I started.

I retired in 2004, so 22 years in April. I’m the only one in Kingston that has worked for the Parole Service, Correctional Service, and RCMP.