HEAVENS, Beatrice May “Bessie”
Age at Death: 44
Rank Private
Unit Canadian Women’s Army Corps
Service Number W1333
Place of Burial Windsor Grove Cemetery, ON
Date of Birth 1898.01.10
Place of Birth Durham County, England
Enlistment August 21, 1942, London ON
Date of Death 1942.11.23
Wife of William Heavens, of Maidstone ON
A housewife with an 8th grade education, Bessie joined the CWAC as a cook. Her Selection Record notes: “...says she has had to cook for large numbers at harvest time, and is best with meats and pies. Wants to learn cooking ‘from the bottom up’ because she would like to put her savings into a restaurant after the war.” Her three children all served, one son in the RCAF, one in the Navy and her daughter Eva joined the RCAF Women’s Division. Because she lived off base, her husband William dropped her off and picked her up each day.
On November 22, 1942, William picked Bessie up, and at some point later in the evening murdered her with a rifle and then took his own life. His suicide note laid the blame on Bessie, for leaving him alone on the farm with “nothing to live for”, and that he objected to her being in the Army. The investigation showed he had threatened Bessie before that he would “shoot her to death”.
