Coffee With...Wesley Oake

Published on November 10, 2011

Terri Saunders

There are certain things Wesley Oake doesn’t like to talk about. He’d prefer not to answer specific questions such as those which attempt to elicit from him the number of people he may have killed in his lifetime. He doesn’t want to talk much about the intimate details of war or the things he experienced in his younger years. But the Second World War veteran’s eyes light up slightly and he becomes animated when talking about the men with whom he fought battles in England and Italy. He recalls with appreciation and reverence the fact he made it back home to Canada when so many others did not. If you really want to get him going, ask him about the thing which matters to him the most. When he speaks about Myrtle, his wife of 65 years, you can see on his face and hear in his voice the young man in his 20s who, having returned from the war-torn battlefields of Europe, wanted to wait just one day before marrying his sweetheart. Mrs. Oake was a little less spontaneous and didn’t take her beloved as her husband for a year. The couple now live in Gander, have five children, four grandchildren and one great-grandchild.