Version 6.01

03 March 2021

David March © 2014

HANS WALTER PERSON

Photo courtesy of Sonja Burton (daughter)

Hans Walter Person was born on Aug.29, 1922, on the family farm in Canwood, Sask.

Walter was the sixth child of seven born to Petrus (born 1885) & Karin (born 1893) Person who had immigrated from Lillherdal, Sweden in 1914. All the children attended the Silver Cliff school.

 Walter worked on the family farm up until he went to Saskatoon and I believe he only went to school until the sixth grade.

Walter went to Saskatoon at the age of seventeen but they wouldn’t let him enlist until he was eighteen so he stayed in Saskatoon and worked at a Meat Packing Plant until he was old enough. He enlisted in the RCAF in 1939 and spent a year in Saskatoon airport where he was then given some training in mechanics before sending him to Halifax , Nova Scotia for further training as a mechanic. He was then sent overseas on a four day journey on the converted ocean liner, the Queen Elizabeth. He served as an Air Mechanic for four years at Bournemouth & Middleton St. George, England.

I believe he was in Britain for only four years. He always refused to talk about his time in Britain so we never heard about that part of his life.

After the war, in 1946, Walter moved to Lake Cowichan, British Columbia where he worked at a Sawmill and then in a Butcher Shop. In 1947, Walter married Agnes Helen Skafte who came from Blue Heron, Sask. They had three children, Howard, Sonja & Betty.

In 1955, Walter bought his own business, Reliable Meat Market in Duncan, BC where he and Agnes lived and worked together until his retirement in 1982.

Walter was an avid craftsman, always building and repairing items until his diabetes prevented him from operating power tools. He was the most amazing person when it came to fixing things. Sonja writes: ‘When my children were young and a toy broke they never cried because they would say, “But grandpa can fix it!” My Dad was nicknamed Grandpa Fixit when my children got older.’

Walter and Agnes were married sixty years before he deceased on Jan.12, 2008 a week after he had a stroke.

Informant: Sonja Burton (daughter) by email 20/04/10