SCOTT, Doris Helen
Age at Death: 23
Rank Corporal
Unit Royal Canadian Air Force Women’s Division
Service Number W301287
Place of Burial Mount Royal Cemetery, Montreal PQ
Date of Birth 1919.02.27
Place of Birth Chesley ON
Enlistment March 18, 1942, Montreal PQ
Date of Death 1942.10.22
Daughter of David Gladstone Scott and Pearl W. Scott of Montreal
Prior to enlistment, Doris had worked as a general clerk and telephone operator, which she felt best qualified to continue in her service. Her interview report described her as “Very neat, active, intelligent young woman… Excellent type of applicant. Very good appearance. Especially well recommended.”
In September of 1942, Doris was hospitalized for 10 days. During her service, she had begun a relationship with a Flying Officer named Fred Ward. According to the written testimony of her friend Margaret Morris, Doris was in hospital for “…a very serious disease and she blamed her relationships with a certain person for it.” She was humiliated at the gossip and damage to her reputation she was sure would follow. Her letters to Margaret detail a growing heartbreak, drunkenness and depression. In her last letter, she wrote, “I’m getting pretty fed up with life, Marge, I think it’s time I did something about it.” As Margaret wrote, “I never at the time took this seriously at all but rather that she was just going to pull herself together.”
She died a few days later, her death certificate stating the cause as “arsenic poisoning, probably self administered.”
