A project that started out as a labour of love between a father and daughter has transformed into a historical book depicting the personal tragedies of a North Bay man who lived for more than a year in a German prison camp during World War II.
North Bay's Jacques Bedard, a pilot who was shot down, survived the crash and spent five months in a German prisoner of war hospital and another 14 months in a prisoner of war camp before being released at the end of the war when he was only 21.
"He was a good man, he basically raised the family on his own because of the problems he had; he was an alcoholic, which is the effect of the war I am sure, and that caused separation when we were young kids and we stayed with him and he managed to raise us," said Roger, his son.
"We were a very close family. He would do anything for you. He was a very giving man," Roger recalled.
Jacques Bedard survived the war, started a family with his wife Therese, and had four children, including Roger, before the couple separated.
Leanne Bedard, Roger's daughter, took a keen interest in WW II history but when Jacques was alive, he was never one to talk about what happened to him in Germany in the mid-1940s.
Nobody in the family had a chance to hear Jacques' side of the story or even get an understanding of what he went through. The subject just never came up.
"People don't realize what the prisoners of war went through, and we did not know ourselves," said Roger.
"He had three brothers who were also in the war and none of them spoke about it, none of them. We had no stories about the war. When you questioned him about it, he just would not answer you," Roger continued.
Sadly on November 11, 1989, Jacques passed away and took his untold stories with him to the grave.
But in 2019, Roger and Leanne got some information that got them thinking.
"Nearly 30 years after my grandfather passed away, my father and I sat down and looked over the endless pages documenting my grandfather's military service, obtained from the Department of Veterans Affairs," Leanne stated in the prologue of the book called, "The Courage of the Small Hours."
After that, the idea of sharing and finding out more about his story became a family passion for Roger, Leanne, and the Bedard family. So they hired writer Patricia Pearson to sift through all the letters and put Jacques Bedard's story together in a book.
"When we got Patricia she dug into things and told me exactly what happened over there because we never knew what happened. We knew he got shot down and he was a prisoner of war and that was about it," said Roger.
"Most of the work we paid Patricia Pearson to do. She did the bulk of the work because we really did not know how to start," added Leanne.
Leanne was shocked to find out what her grandfather had to endure as a prisoner of war.
"The POW's actually participated in a death march in January of 1945 which was one of the coldest winters in Germany in 50 years and just the amount of stamina to be able to survive that, and that was just something that we had no idea about," said Leanne, noting he also survived a deadly bout of dysentery while in captivity.
The book was just recently finished and a small run is being delivered to family members, the North Bay Public Library, the War Museum in Ottawa, and the 424 Squadron museum in Trenton.
The Bedards feel the book brings some closure and more understanding into what happened to Jacques overseas.
"The benefit of the book is we never knew what happened to him from the time he left until he came back. We never knew the timeline," said Roger.
"Finally for me, it is a sense of closure in a way because I know in the past it was a big interest for me, and when I watched wartime movies I would always wonder before this book what he had been through and now I feel like I know," said Leanne.
Now they understand why Jacques refused to fly again - even on a commercial airliner - once he came home from the war.
The book also makes Remembrance Day 2021 more symbolic on the special day and anniversary of his passing.
"Every Remembrance Day is special for us but we always honoured the veterans anyway, but more so, we did it because my dad passed away on that date and made it an even more special day," said Roger as his voice weakened.
"Finally for me, it is a sense of closure in a way because I know in the past it was a big interest for me, and when I watched wartime movies I would always wonder before this book what he had been through and now I feel like I know," said Leanne.
