Days of joy and thanksgiving

By Michel Rossignol

In troubled times, it is comforting to remember days in the past when residents of Lowertown celebrated. For example, there were many joyful celebrations on Monday, May 7, 1945. The day began quietly like most days that spring, but by the evening, people were dancing in the streets of Lowertown. 

Today, the end of the Second World War in Europe is commemorated on May 8, the day proclaimed by Canada and its allies, the United Kingdom and the United States, as Victory in Europe Day (V-E Day). However, the citizens of Ottawa started to celebrate on the morning of May 7 as soon as they heard the news that the German forces had surrendered the previous evening. The headline on the front page of the May 7 edition of the Le Droit newspaper (which in those days was printed on George Street) was just one word in bold letters, “CAPITULATION.” The readers knew this meant that the war in Europe was finally over and that the young Canadians in military units overseas, including those who liberated The Netherlands, would soon return home.

Just before noon on May 7, large crowds of people started to celebrate in the streets of downtown Ottawa. Almost every day during the war, there was a parade of military personnel around noon to promote the sale of victory bonds in support of the war effort. That day the parade became part of the celebrations, notably in the area around the National War Memorial and the Chateau Laurier Hotel. Just next door to the hotel, in the Daly Building at the corner of Mackenzie and Rideau Streets (demolished many years ago), public servants joyfully threw wartime forms and documents that were no longer needed out of the windows. The sidewalks were soon awash with discarded paper, but this did not stop the happy crowds marching up and down the streets. As reported in Le Droit, the citizens of Canada’s capital city were delirious, now that years of bad news and food rationing were finally coming to an end.

By coincidence, there were other celebrations in Lowertown at that time. The year 1945 was also the centennial of the arrival in Bytown of Élisabeth Bruyère and the Sisters of Charity (also known as the Grey Nuns). The Sisters founded schools and Ottawa’s first hospital, which later became the General Hospital on Bruyère Street (now the location of Bruyère Health Élizabeth-Bruyère Hospital). 

The immense contribution of the Sisters of Charity to education and healthcare in Lowertown since 1845 was celebrated in a ceremony at the St. Charles Home for Seniors, also administered by the Sisters, which was located on Bruyère between Dalhousie and Cumberland Streets. However, these celebrations were no doubt subdued compared to those that took place on the evening of May 7 a few blocks away at the intersection of Dalhousie and St Patrick Streets. A large crowd gathered there and blocked traffic in order to dance in the streets. As reported in the Ottawa Citizen, this was one of numerous street parties in Ottawa that evening.

Shortly after the end of the war, the Dutch royal family donated tulip bulbs to thank Canada for our role in liberating the Netherlands from the Nazis and for providing refuge to the family during the war. With the annual Canadian Tulip Festival, tulips have been ever since a major feature of spring in Ottawa. The tulips in Lowertown and other parts of Ottawa are a reminder of the days of joy and thanksgiving in 1945.