SOUTHWELL, Violet Marion
Age at Death: 38
Rank Private
Unit Canadian Women’s Army Corps
Service Number W12377
Place of Burial Victoria Lawn Cemetery, St. Catherines ON
Date of Birth 1906.09.16
Place of Birth Hastings, UK
Enlistment July 2, 1942, London ON
Date of Death 1944.11.06
Daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Frank Southwell, of Hastings, Sussex, England; niece of Mrs. C. E. Wilson, of St. Catharines
Born in England, Violet came to Canada on her own at the age of 16. She lived with an aunt in St. Catherines, Ontario, and worked for eight years as a weaver at the Grouts Silk Mills, eventually becoming a supervisor there. She had two sisters and two brothers, both of whom were in the British Forces—one served in Italy while another was taken as a prisoner of war in Japan. Her Personnel Selection Record states, “While overseas, she became engaged to a Canadian soldier, but their plans for marriage were interrupted when he was sent to Italy—she says that she gets 5 or 6 letters a week from him.”
Most of her service was overseas. Beginning in the spring of 1943, she was frequently in and out of hospital for problems with her bladder and abdomen. She was repatriated to Canada in February 1944, and discharged for medical reasons that August. In November 1944, she died in her adoptive hometown of St. Catherines from an intestinal obstruction.