Ed Doer and the missed 75th Anniversary -

By Pepper Parr

May 9th, 2020

BURLINGTON, ON

May is a month that tugs at the emotions of the Dutch people, especially when the year is a significant one.

May 8th, 1945 – the German Instrument of Surrender is signed.

Dutch boys accepting cookies and chocolate bars from Canadian soldiers who had liberated Holland. Ed Doer was amongst them

Ed Doer and his brother are dressed up in their best clothing, wearing “pointed little party hats” for the parade that took place on the streets of Rotterdam. He recalls vividly the piece of biscuit with chocolate covering given to him by a soldier marching by – he remembers very little else other than the troops marching, the tanks and the trucks and the jeeps.

He remembers all too well the months before the Liberation. “There was no food, people were starving to death and dropping dead in the streets. We went to bed with the root of a piece of wood in our mouth sucking on the wood that had a sweet taste to it.”

The winter of 1944 was brutally cold – the war looked as if it was coming to an end – people just wanted to live until that day.

Ed lived with his family – mother and father and three siblings, on the second floor of a four storey building – some days all they got a single piece of bread to eat – some days not even that.

Canadian soldiers were lionized on the streets of Rotterdam

When the war was over, the Allies brought in tons of food and life became normal – but no one talked about the war – it was something that happened. Everyone knew that but it was not something that was talked about.

All the energy and community effort went into recovery and rebuilding. “We were all busy and had housing and decent food.

At the age of 19 Ed decided he wanted to see more of the world and Canada appealed to him. He got off the boat in Montreal with $25 in his pocket and everything he owned in a cardboard suitcase. Canadians were seen as heroes for liberating Holland – something that country has never forgotten.

He got work in the construction field and moved around the country on different construction jobs: Northern Ontario, Sudbury, Montreal. One of the men he worked with came from Burlington and talked about the place all the time. “It sounded like a place I might want to live in”, he said.

For a period of time he owned and operated a construction business of his own.

Mississauga was where he first settled down; when he came to Burlington he lived in the Longmoor area. He and his wife and their two children eventually settled in Tyandaga and have been there ever since.

There was a 25th Anniversary celebrating the end of that war.

And then there was a 50th – Ed was aware of them but the strong bond with Holland he has today was not something he had then.

He was Dutch but there wasn’t a strong attachment to the country nor a deep understanding until he got involved with Mundialization.

The Gazette talked to Ed about his thoughts and the life that he now lives in Canada when he immigrated to Canada.

Getting a strong attachment to the role Canada played in the Liberation of the country he was born in began when then Mayor Rob MacIssaac suggested he get involved in the Mundialization Committee – it wasn’t a word Ed fully understood – he went on to become chair of the committee and took part in many trips to Holland and was behind the effort to twin the city of Burlington with the Dutch city of Apeldoorn.

Ed took part in a 1995 trip to Holland. When Burlington twinned with the Dutch city of Apeldoorn in 2005, Ed was one of the people who worked on making that happen.

He was part of the 1995 visit and was part of the five year cycle of visits every year up until 2015. He was scheduled for the 2020 trip but the pandemic but a stop to that.

Ed retired from the Mundialization committee earlier this year – It was time to turn it over to younger people he said.

A number of years before, in 2000, Ed took his son-in-law with him to Holland; they toured Rotterdam and the war cemeteries and stood before grave markers that had the names of 17 and 18 year old boys etched in the stone.

It was an amazing emotional moment for Ed Doer. It gave depth and meaning to the work he did on the Mundialization Committee.

From an at times high spirited 20 year old, Ed became a Canadian with a deep appreciation for his heritage and worked hard to create a bond between his home city and the country he was born in.

He remarks on how many people show up for the Burlington Remembrance Day ceremony at city hall each year. They get bigger and bigger he said. Twenty years ago the turnout was quite small; today it fills the street.

Ed Doer worked with the Teen Tour Band on their trips to Holland; he is involved in the high school exchanges that take place.

The cultural part of Doer’s life isn’t all that has occupied Ed Doer. He was on the governing board of the Joseph Brant Hospital for seven years – during that period of time the expansion of the hospital was started.

A fiftieth and then a 75th anniversary, which for many of the Dutch people who lived in Holland as children when the Canadian Army liberated the country, this was likely to be their last major celebration.

For Ed Doer, a Tyandaga resident, the 75th anniversary was not something he could take part in: like everyone else he was locked down and there was nothing to take part in because of COVID-19. He is left with his memories.

Still – the evening of May 8th was quiet and reflective – Ed wonders if we learned anything from that terrible part of world history. He isn’t sure we have.