Death of War Bride Rosa Bertha Lambert

Calgary Herald

  “Perhaps the saddest task the Fund officials at St. John had to perform was to arrange the burial of those who reached Canada only to die… Mrs. Gordon Holder fell the responsibility of breaking the news to relatives in England or consoling the husband who had arrived with his wife. Saddest of all was the task of comforting little children that were sometimes left motherless and whose fathers were still in Europe.”

While researching the war brides for the past 14 years, some of the most difficult cases to come across are the ones who died while on their journey to Canada. One such war bride was Rosa Bertha Lambert. She died shortly after arriving at Quebec in August 1919

Rosa Bertha Jadwega Falecka married Calgary soldier Arthur Robert Lambert (Regimental # 447116) of the 31^st Battalion in the Parish church of Clapham in London on 22^nd January 1919. During the war, Rosa had reportedly been traumatized by a bombing near her home in London. She likely suffered from a stress disorder after the incident.

She came to Canada on the ship Corsican in August 1919 but her health suffered further and she was admitted to the Jeffrey Hale Hospital in Quebec after the ship arrived at the port and suffered a fatal relapse. She was 35 years old. Her husband had her body shipped to Calgary for a funeral and she was buried in the Union Cemetery. Sadly, she never had the chance to make a new life for herself in Canada.

Corsican. Annette Fulford collection

I haven't located a death record to learn her cause of death. I would like to confirm what she died of. If anyone has any further info on her, I'd love to hear from you.

Note: The newspaper report above lists her name as Cissy Bishop. Her name was indeed Rosa Bertha Falecka, wife of Arthur Lambert of Calgary.


(c) Annette Fulford, September 2018



Sources:
Canada Passenger Lists, 1881-1922. Database with images. FamilySearch.org http://FamilySearch.org: 27 August 2018. Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa, Ontario.
Morris, Philip H. The Canadian Patriot Fund, a report of its activities from 1914-1919, 48.
Bombing Raid Shock Fatal to Mrs. Lambert. Calgary Daily Herald, August 26, 1919, 19.

Using Canadian WWI War Diaries for Military Ships with Civilian Passengers

Toronto Star

A great resource that many people are not aware of is the war diaries for ships during and after WWI. If your war bride travelled on a ship that contained military men, you might be able to locate a war diary for their sailing at Library and Archives Canada in War Diaries.  Some are online, while others are available on microfilm only. An alternative viewer for war diaries is online at UVIC C.G.W.P. War Diaries.

To do a search for the diaries for ships do an Advanced Archives Search for War Diaries and add the name of the ship on the second line in the search function. They show up under War Diaries - Progress Charts, Transports  Olympic for example.

Lily May Young married British-born Canadian Expeditionary Force soldier Samuel Palmer (Regimental #778984) in 1918 in England. Sam was a widower with three young children back home in Ontario. Not long after she married, Lily left from Southampton, England on the Olympic on 1st November 1918, intending to travel to Toronto and set up a house for her husband and his family while he was still overseas.

Lily travelled to Canada during the height of the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918, so I was interested to learn whether the cause of her death was influenza. The passenger list for the Olympic shows her name is crossed off and the info "died at sea" is written above her line on the manifest but no cause of death is listed.

Olympic Passenger List. Library and Archives Canada

In order to confirm how she died, I needed to find an alternative source of information about her death. That is where the war diaries come in useful. This is one page from the November 1918 sailing of the Olympic. 

War Diaries, Olympic. Library and Archives Canada

The diary records that Lily took sick with a septic throat and was placed in an isolation hospital on board on 4^th November. She died on 8 November 1918, at age 23 of Broncho-pneumonia and septicemia and was buried at sea the next day. The ship landed at New York two days later on the 10^th. 

Sadly, she was just the first of many young war brides who died during their journey to Canada. Officials on the next sailing of the Olympic issued gauze masks to the passengers in order to keep the outbreak on board to a minimum but it didn't stop the deaths of a number of war brides coming to Canada during the influenza pandemic of 1918-1919.

Source:
Canada Passenger Lists, 1881-1922. Database with images. FamilySearch.orf http://FamilySearch.org: 27 August 2018. Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa, Ontario.

MIKAN 2005288 War Diaries - Progress Charts, Transports: OLYPMIC = Journal de guerre - Tableau d'avancement, Transports: OLYMPIC. 1916/09/14-1919/04/21. Library and Archives Canada 

(c) Annette Fulford, September 2018
Updated on January 23, 2021