RECH, Mary
Age at Death: 19
Rank Wren
Unit Women’s Royal Canadian Naval Service
Service Number W3431
Place of Burial Beechmount Cemetery, Edmonton AB
Date of Birth 1924.10.26
Place of Birth Carbondale AB
Enlistment July 3, 1943, Edmonton AB
Date of Death 1944.07.24
Daughter of Charles and Pearl Rech, of Carbondale, AB
Mary grew up in rural Alberta, with eight brothers and two sisters. She stopped attending school after Grade 6, possibly because the school was a four-mile walk from her house. She interviewed twice for service; her first evaluation described her as “not too bright” and lacking confidence, and was inconclusive as to whether she should be accepted. The second evaluation was not much kinder, stating “Intelligence not of high order, but a very pleasant, willing looking little girl,” and concluding, “Think she will be no trouble in discipline or in willingness to work.”
After basic training, she was assigned to HMCS Protector in Sydney, Nova Scotia. While on shore leave there, she went to an abandoned quarry with five other Wrens and three male naval officers. With Wren Imelda Stever and another colleague, she walked into the water; the three young women failed to see a steep drop-off and slipped underwater. Despite being in the Navy and stationed on a ship, none of them could swim. Their male colleagues pulled them out; Wren Lillian Penteliuk was revived, but both Mary and Imelda had drowned.
