Prompt # 50 - Godparents

Prompt # 50 - Godparents

I'm not sure if I had official godparents, named at my baptism, but I always associated two women as my godmothers. The first was Mrs Ethel Grove who was the mother of a friend of my father's. I don't know why I think so. We had no special contact except when our family visited her on our trips from Manitoba to BC. She moved from Bradwardine, Manitoba, my father's home town, to Trail, BC with her daughter Ruth who was a teacher. The two later moved to Sooke, BC to be near Mrs. Grove's son Ralph. Before my parents were married, when my dad was in the Canadian army waiting in England, he visited the Groves when he was on leave. They had gone to England to visit family and got trapped over there when the war started. I think they may have been in Scotland.

My second godmother was Joan Smith, a good friend of my mother's. Their mothers were best friends. Joan was also like a sister to my father who had worked for her parents. I was named for Joan and for my maternal grandmother, Winifred Joan.

I left home at seventeen to go to university and never lived with my parents again. This meant that I seldom saw the people they visited. That and the fact that I still lived in Manitoba while everyone else lived in BC.