Scope and Content: | |
Series consists of files concerning Clara Thomas' career and personal life including her family history and contains academic awards and degrees, notes from colleagues, correspondence and photographs. The family history files consist of notes regarding her family and home town of Strathroy, Ontario, obituaries, clippings and manuscript and typescript copies of three sets of letters from overseas during the First and Second World Wars. The first is from the uncle of Clara Thomas, Vernon Sullivan of Strathroy, reported missing in August of 1918. The second is a group of letters from flight sergeant, Vernon McCandless (1925 - ), brother of Clara Thomas, while overseas in the Bomber Command, late 1944 and 1945. The originals of his letters are in the correspondence files. The third group of letters is the collection written by Alfred Brandon Conron (1919-1993), of the First Hussars Armoured Regiment, London, Ont., to Clara Thomas, from 1941 to 1952. Conron and Thomas were students and friends at U. W.O. 1937-1941. He had a distinguished war record and came home a major, D.S.O. and Croix de Guerre. He was wounded in the D-Day landings but quickly returned to his regiment and served throughout the rest of the war in Holland. Conron subsequently became a professor, Department of English, University of Western Ontario.
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