This past spring when Dr. Roly Armitage was honoured for his lifetime achievements that have included being a Standardbred industry leader, he noted that kindness has been key to nearly a century of service to his country. One act of kindness has come back to light eight decades later for the 98-year-old decorated World War II veteran.
Armitage's public recollections of saving two children back in 1944 when serving in Holland have sparked a reunion with one of those kids 80 years later.
"I was driving the Jeep in 1944 in Holland near the Eindhoven airport," he told CTV News Ottawa, recalling the cold night decades ago that he never forgot. "I thought I saw movement as I went by, I thought it could be soldiers… so I backed up and there's two little kids in the ditch.
"So I dug them out. It was cold, cold, cold," he said. "I took them to the field kitchen and I said to the chef, 'Get yourself help, look after these kids, clean them up and warm them up.'"
The boy, approximately six years old, returned home, but the little girl, who was around three years old, was taken to a nunnery and Armitage never heard what happened to her.
When Armitage told this story to Dutch media this past spring, the identity of the little girl was discovered. Now 83 and living in Minnesota, Sonja Jobes will be reunited with the man that saved her in Ottawa next month.
(With files from CTV News Ottawa)