British War Bride and Canada Groom Die Within Hours Of Each Other
A British wartime bride and her Canadian veteran husband have died five hours apart – a month after celebrating their 75th wedding anniversary.
George and Jean Spear met in 1941 at a dance hall near London, while he was stationed in Britain during the Second World War.
The couple passed away in an Ottawa hospital on Friday after Mrs Spear, 94, was admitted for pneumonia.
She was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 2006.
Mrs Spear and her 95-year-old husband met the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge during their 2011 Royal Tour.
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Mr Spear was admitted to Queensway Carleton Hospital on Wednesday, a day after his wife, when he fell into a deep sleep.
Hospital staff had tried to move Mr Spear to his wife’s floor, but Mrs Spear died peacefully in her sleep on Friday at 04:30 local time before that could be arranged.
Mr Spear followed quickly afterwards at 09:45 am, the Ottawa Citizen reported.
They leave behind two adult children, Heather and Ian.
“We tell stories to make ourselves feel better,” their daughter, Heather Spear, told the Ottawa Citizen.
“But this defies any sort of logic. We were overwhelmed by the suddenness of it.”
The couple met during a dance while Mr Spear was serving as a sergeant major in the 1st Corps Field Survey Co, Royal Canadian Engineers.
“She looked down at my army boots and said, ‘I don’t know whether we can or not with those clodhoppers you’re wearing,” recalled Mr Spear to the Ottawa Citizenduring the couple’s 72nd wedding anniversary.
“That was our introduction. I said, ‘Let’s give it a try.’ And we did. And that was it.”
Media captionBetty Hawkins