A Port Alberni man is wondering about a woman he helped 60 years ago.
“I’ve always been kind of curious how she made out,” said George Toombs, 78.
In July 1953, Toombs was a cocky 18-year-old who had just finished his basic training for the Canadian Navy and was on his way back to the West Coast by train.
He was playing cards with two Australian women when he heard about a woman and her two children who were going to be taken off the train in Winnipeg.
Toombs said he asked the conductor why this was happening and was told to mind his own business.
“At that point I decided to make it my business,” he said.
He went to talk to the woman and she told him that she had fainted on the train because she didn’t have anything to eat. Toombs said he helped her because he has “a love for people and she was in distress.
“She had money, but didn’t want to spend it and she didn’t have any meal tickets although she did made sure her kids had something to eat,” he said. “I went around and asked the passengers to donate a dollar to keep her on the train.”
He spoke again with the conductor and convinced him to let her stay on the train to Vancouver and she could use Toombs’ sleeper.
“At that time there were these sleepers—people didn’t have rooms like they have today,” he said. Sleepers were a fold-down bed and a curtain that was drawn across. “It wasn’t private, but it was better than sleeping in coach.”
They kept her on board and Toombs made sure that she and her children were able to eat.
The woman, who according to Toombs could have been about the same age as he was, explained to him that she was on her way to Vancouver to meet her husband and then go up to Powell River where he worked at the pulp mill.
“That was the last I saw of her because she had to go through immigration when she got to the station,” he explained. Toombs said he thought that maybe she had come from either Poland or Holland.
Toombs owns a barber shop in Port Alberni. A couple of weeks ago a man from Powell River came into his shop and Toombs told him the story of the mystery woman with her daughter and son.
“I don’t have any names,” said Toombs. “She may not be alive, but her kids might.”
Readers who have tips about the identity of the woman can contact Toombs at his shop 1.250.723.8932.
