CLEGG, Olive Irene
Age at Death: 24
Rank Leading Wren
Unit Women’s Royal Canadian Naval Service
Service Number W1396
Place of Burial Binscarth Cemetery, MB
Date of Birth 1919.07.14
Place of Birth Binscarth MB
Enlistment February 4, 1943, Winnipeg MB
Date of Death 1944.06.17
Daughter of Morley E. Clegg and Louise Clegg, of Binscarth
Olive grew up in Binscarth, Manitoba. Prior to enlistment, she worked as switchboard operator for the Manitoba Telephone System for two years. After completing basic training in Galt and Preston, Ontario, she continued her work as switchboard operator on HMCS Conestoga, then was reposted to the Protector II in Sydney, Nova Scotia, where she rose to the rank of Leading Signalwoman.
In January of 1944, she wrote to her Unit Officer, begging to be posted overseas. Two months later, she wrote another letter, this time asking to be discharged on compassionate grounds. Wren Clegg was seven months pregnant, and could no longer conceal it. At the same time, she was admitted to hospital and was diagnosed with tuberculosis. A letter to her parents from the Protector’s Chaplain read, “It has been Olive’s desire to keep her mistake from you; and not cause you pain and suffering… but there is one thing that can lift a tremendous load from her mind, and that is to hear from you, and to know that you still love her in spite of all that has happened.”
In April, her baby’s birth was induced one month early, as medical authorities suspected Olive would not live much longer, and indeed she died on June 17. A few days later, her baby daughter was removed from hospital and placed with foster parents, but she subsequently fell ill and died of tubercular meningitis that July.