Date: Fri 04-Jul-1997

Publication: Bee

Author: KAAREN

Quick Words:

Pat-Ken-Stroud-50-anniversary

Full Text:

A 50-Year Relationship With Its Roots In War And Its Spirit In Peace

(with photos)

BY KAAREN VALENTA

Pat and Ken Stroud's marriage is a wartime love affair which has endured for

five decades.

Liberated after spending 3« years in Japanese prisoner of war camps, Ken

Stroud returned to England at the close of World War II and met a young Welch

lass who worked in communications in the heavily bombed port area along the

English Channel. They were engaged within a week and married the following

year.

Fifty years, five children and 11 grandchildren later, Pat and Ken Stroud

celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary this year in a Mass and

reception at St. Rose of Lima Church, where Ken was the parish's first

permanent deacon.

"We've had a fantastic life - a wonderful life," Pat said.

The couple met when Ken returned to the English port of Weymouth after being

released from a prisoner of war camp in Java. He'd been only 20 when he joined

the Royal Air Force and was assigned to radar because of his technical school

training in telecommunications. A "leading aircraftman" - the British

equivalent of a lance corporal - he was sent to the Far East where he became a

prisoner of the Japanese after the fall of Singapore and Java.

"I managed to get out of the city a short time before the fall of Singapore,"

Ken recalled. "We had a half day to pack our bags and get down to the ship

which was a Royal Navy transport, a riverboat normally used to chase river

pirates. We landed a day later in Java, but that soon fell, too, and we were

taken prisoner."

He was sent to a small island called Haruku in the Spice Islands north of

Australia.

"We were used as slave labor building landing strips for an invasion of

Australia," Ken said. "The Japanese fully intended to take over Australia and

did attack the northern part of Australia. The Allies retaliated by bombing

Haruku but by that time I had been brought back to Java. Then I was put on a

transport to Singapore and sent to the River Valley Camp, the same camp where

the survivors of the Bridge Over the River Kwai and the River of Death were

incarcerated."

When the camp was freed in late 1945, British admiral Lord Mountbatten and his

wife, who was the head of the international Red Cross, came with the English

troops. Ken Stroud got their signatures on the only piece of paper he could

find, a worthless piece of script (currency) printed by the Japanese during

the war.

"The first persons ashore were members of the press, who took photographs

which appeared in newspapers back in England one day later," Ken said. "My

mother saw one of the photographs, somehow recognized me - I only weighed

about 90 pounds at that time and looked like a native - and sent the photo to

my brother in Burma."

Wartime Rationing

Ken returned to England by ship and returned to his job with the engineering

department of the telephone exchange. The country was still on strict

rationing at that time but, as a former prisoner of war, he got special

rations - the same as a pregnant woman, which amounted to one extra egg a

month.

"Of course there weren't any eggs available," he recalled. "The war was over,

the American Lend-Lease came to an abrupt end and it took a long time to get

everything started up again after everything had been converted for the war

effort."

Pat, who grew up in Wales, had become a supervisor in the telephone exchange

in Weymouth during the war.

"It was a very exciting time - we handled a lot of important telephone calls,"

she said. "I talked to (Winston) Churchill once. Of course, the bombing was

going on all the time. One time a small fire bomb came right through the roof

and landed on the floor but didn't explode. We had big buckets of sand sitting

around so I picked up the bomb and threw it in one of the buckets."

Located in the middle of a triple bay on the southern coast of England,

Weymouth sits between White Bridges, where torpedoes were manufactured, and

the naval base at Portland. The entire area was a frequent target of German

bombing.

"The First Division of the US Army was stationed there, getting ready for

D-Day," Pat said. "They all came to town on June 3 to be loaded onto a sea of

little boats in the harbor. They were kept there for three days in terrible

weather, windy, foggy - and we heard that the men were seasick. But by June 6

they decided they had to go and fortunately the weather cleared somewhat."

During the early months of the war, children were brought from London to the

safety of the seaside towns. They were soon moved, however, when it became

obvious that the port cities also would be frequent targets.

Despite the bombing, the population - civilian and military - refused to let

their spirits be broken. "We had a lot of socials," Pat said. "And we had lots

of treats which we hadn't had for years - things like ice cream, canned

peaches and peanut butter which the US troops brought. At the end of the war

other troops - French, Polish - came through in waves."

Rationing began in 1940 and was still in force when the Strouds got married in

1947.

One of our favorite foods was Spam," Pat said. "Restaurants offered Spam in

many different ways. For instance, instead of fish and chips, it was Spam and

Chips."

Wartime rationing only permitted 50 guests at a wedding. The wedding meal

featured corned beef.

"My grandfather had been a butcher and he was disgusted that it was corned

beef, but that's all we were allowed," Pat said. "We got ration coupons for

two blankets, one set of sheets and pillows, my wedding dress, the going away

dress and shoes."

Three years after they were married, Ken and Pat - by now convinced that they

couldn't have children - adopted an infant and named her Susan. But housing

was very difficult to find and employment opportunities were limited, so Ken

decided to look for a job in Canada.

"I left my family with enough money to live for six weeks and went by ship

from Southampton, via France, to Canada," he said. "We were supposed to go to

Montreal but the St Lawrence River was freezing so we went to Quebec City and

I took the train to Montreal. Fortunately I got a job right away and sent for

my family."

He went to work for Northern Electric, the manufacturing arm of the Bell

system in Canada. Then in 1956, he was offered a job with New England

Telephone and Telegraphy in Manchester, N.H. Two of the Stroud's five children

- Dominic and Adrian - were born there. The family moved to Vermont, then to

Raleigh, N.C., where Clare and Simon were born.

Ken, who by now worked for International Telephone & Telegraph (IT&T), was

transferred to New Jersey, then to Connecticut in 1978. He retired in 1985 as

a senior engineer at IT&T.

Perpetual Volunteers

More than 20 years ago, while still living in New Jersey, Ken began training

to become a deacon in the Catholic church, a significant step for any Catholic

particularly one who had been raised in the Anglican church - the Church of

England. He converted soon after he and Pat adopted Susan in 1950. When the

Vatican gave permission in 1967 for lay persons to become deacons, Ken decided

to begin training. He was ordained in December 1977 by Archbishop Leo Gerety

in Newark at what is now called The Cathedral Basilica of Sacred Heart.

They moved into their house on Sugar Street in Newtown in 1978 and became

actively involved in the community. "We're perpetual volunteers," Pat said,

laughing.

They've driven Meals On Wheels for the past 12 years, worked at the Dorothy

Day Hospitality House soup kitchen, sing with the Connecticut Choral Society

and were founders of its Chamber Singers. Ken spends Fridays doing pastoral

work with Hospice and visiting parishioners who are in the hospital.

Pat is a Eucharistic minister, a lector and a member of the choir. After she

learned that she had cancer in 1989, she ran a cancer support group for many

years. She's a past president of the Newtown Woman's Club; both she and Ken

belong to a Great Books discussion group and play bridge regularly.

Three of their children - Adrian, Clare and Simon - were married in almost

successive Memorial Day weekend weddings at St. Rose. Clare wore the wedding

dress which her mother purchased with ration coupons.

Although, at 77, Ken said he is beginning to slow down, he isn't sure yet

about retirement.

"Priests have to retire at age 75 but there's no retirement policy in this

parish for deacons," he explained. "I have cut back, however."

Although their family is spread across the United States now, the Strouds have

no plans to leave Newtown.

"We've had a very happy time here - we were lucky to find such a wonderful

town to retire in," Pat said.