Once Upon a time there was a young boy of 12 with black hair and brown eyes. His name was John but everyone called him Jack. He had many friends and was captain of a cricket team. Jack’s mother Eva Mary listened to two Mormon missionaries and the whole family were baptized. To Eva this meant to move to Cardston, Alberta, Canada to be near a Mormon Temple. Jack was obedient but reluctant as he helped with the other two children as they crossed the great Atlantic.
Martha a beautiful black haired brown eyed German Lutheran girl moved with her family from a ranch around Irvine, Alberta Canada, to Taylorville a farm outside Cardston, Alberta. After the 8th grade her father sent her into Cardston to live with the Wolff family. Martha was to help Mrs. Wolff with four rambunctious boys and iron sheets for the Wolff hotel.
Jack and Martha met, fell in love, two very different people, from different backgrounds, different religions. It was only nine years after World War 1, where the English fought the Germans for four years. Jacks father fought in the trenches in Germany. With nothing in common but their love for each other they were married in Jack’s parents’ home in Cardston, by a Mormon Bishop. It was at the beginning of the great depression of the 1930’s
In August Martha was in The General hospital in Calgary, and after a long painful delivery, the nurse placed a tiny 6 pound 2oz baby girl in Martha’s arms. Jack rushed to her bedside, after a quick kiss to Martha, he looked at his beautiful blue eyed, blond daughter. Together Martha and Jack gently took off the wrappings around the baby and first examined her tiny feet. Then her hands, Martha smiled and looked up, Jack’s face abruptly turned chalk white and he said, “Look!” as he held up his daughters right hand. Martha fainted. The doctor came into the room, and noticed Jack and Martha’s faces. He said, “Your daughter has two thumbs, this only happens once in a 100 years, and is a good sign. Your daughter is a princess. But to keep this secret from the world we will remove one of the thumbs before you take her home”. After 21 days the thumb was removed, the nurses called the baby “our brave little soldier.”
They named their tiny little girl Millicent Alfreda after Jacks sister and brother who died in England during the Spanish pandemic of 1918.