Seeing this "Little Coat" inspired a country singer to write an award-winning book

Canadian soldier Bob Elliott and his crew asked a Dutch seamstress to make this child's coat from a Canadian Army blanket. The buttons came from the soldiers' tunics. The soldiers gave the coat to their "good-luck charm", 10-year-old Sussie Cretier, on Christmas Day 1944.

Alan J. Buick was a full-time carpentry instructor and a part-time country singer when he noticed the unique child's coat in a case on display in Olds, Alberta. Here is  what the first glimpse of that little coat meant to him:

Seeing the “little coat” for the first time - at the Royal Canadian Legion in Olds, Alberta in September 2004 - filled me with bewilderment more than passion. I asked a friend, who had come to hear my wife Carol and I play music that night, why this coat with Canadian Army buttons was displayed with all the wartime memorabilia; it was far too small for a soldier to have worn. My friend proceeded to relate some of the story behind its creation – it was a Christmas gift in 1944 from Canadian soldiers to a 10-year-old Dutch girl who had become a good-luck charm for them; she later brought the coat to Canada.

It was then that my passion for this tale began.

The most powerful moment was when I learned that the little Dutch girl who wore the coat and the soldier who gave it to her were not only still alive in 2004, but married to each other! I knew I had an epic by the tail! I had to find out more.

I contacted Bob and Sue Elliott - the Canadian soldier and the Dutch girl - who were at that time living in the Netherlands. The email address I'd been given for them failed, so snail mail was the only other choice. They replied to my letter and the journey to turn their story into a book began.

These were Sue's words: "I have no problem telling you what it was like growing up under Nazi rule, but good luck when you get to Bob!”

She was right. Bob, like many veterans, preferred not to talk about the horrors of war; the recollections opened old wounds long forgotten.

Bob and Sue and I met face-to-face at the Royal Canadian Legion hall in Olds, Alberta in October 2005 to discuss the procedure for writing this book. It was a truly amazing day. Just talking to these two wonderful people who had endured so much was an awe-inspiring experience for me.

 

Bob and Sue (Sussie) Elliott in 2005 with Sue's little coat on display at the Royal Canadian Legion in Olds, Alberta, Canada.

I knew I had not collected all the information I needed that day. The journey I had chosen was both humbling and difficult. I was dealing with 65-year-old memories! A good example of this was the day before my publisher, Deana Driver, was to send the manuscript off to print, Sue told me of the German soldier who visited with her family frequently. This information had to be included in the book as it showed how not all German people were evil.
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At the close of our 2005 meeting, Sue asked me what she should do with her little coat. I said it should be in a museum, where it would inform future generations of the compassion and generosity Canadian soldiers had for the emaciated and spiritually worn-down peoples of the Netherlands. They contacted the Canadian War Museum, which promptly sent two representatives to the Olds Legion to carefully prepare this ancient garment for the long flight to Ottawa.

 

Alan J. Buick, author of the award-winning, Canadian best-selling book The Little Coat: The Bob and Sue Elliott Story, available from www.driverworks.ca

  

Prior to the official book launch, scheduled to take place at the Olds Legion on November 11, 2009, a pre-launch gathering was held at the Armoury Officers' Mess in Regina. As strange as it may sound and with fate in our corner, one of the officials from the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands happened to be present that night, Hans Moor. We gave him a copy of my book, The Little Coat: The Bob and Sue Elliott Story, and he read it on his flight back to Ottawa.

A few weeks later, I was invited by him to attend a function at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa to honour the Canadian soldiers of World War II who repatriated the Netherlands. This was an amazing evening. There was I, a New Zealand farmboy, rubbing shoulders and chatting with Dutch Ambassador Wim Geerts and General Charles Belzile, retired commander of the Canadian Forces! A truly humbling and memorable experience.

My most touching moment on that trip was seeing "the child's coat" in its restored state and mounted in a beautiful glass case, complete with a bronze plaque briefly explaining what it was and what it represented. It literally brought me to tears. The War Museum staff had done an excellent job of presenting this wonderful artifact.

 

Alan J. Buick seeing the child's coat at the Canadian War Museum.
(Photo courtesy of Hans Moor, Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Ottawa, ON) 

It is difficult to pinpoint any incident I told in The Little Coat book as being more significant than another but, if I were to pick just one, it would be when Sussie's (Sue's) family escaped on foot for two kilometres to the safety of the Canadian lines while her family was under fire from German soldiers.

The Little Coat is a perennial story, a story of love and compassion, of terror and human relationships – a perfect gift for men, women, and children ages 10 and up, or even just because. Once you read it, you'll understand the gratitude the Dutch still have for Canadians today and forever. This book captures the true compassion of the Canadian soldiers for the Dutch people in their darkest hour.

Editor's note: The Little Coat: The Bob and Sue Elliott Story was awarded Honourable Mention, 2010 Hollywood Book Festival. $4,500 from sales of The Little Coat has been donated to the Royal Canadian Legion Dominion Command Poppy Trust Fund. $1 from every book sold from 2013 on is donated to the Canadian War Museum, the new home of the 'child's coat' in this inspiring war story turned love story.

Belgium, Netherlands & a Special Lady - Europe Adventure Blog Part 9

Have you ever been to Belgium? It's beautiful.

I'm the Never Leave Your Wingman book. (Yes, you read that correctly - I'm a book.) My author/publisher Deana Driver and I, plus Deana's husband/publisher partner Publisher Al, were in Bruges in August as part of our wonderful European adventure (see my first blog). We only spent a day in Belgium because we had so many other wonderful places to visit on our agenda ... but what we saw was beautiful and enough to make us want to go back again.. Allow me to share some of the great sights and sites from this beautiful city.

Oh, hello, Publisher Al! Are you going to lead us on our tour of Bruges?

No? Good thing. I don't think you'd fit in this little tourist vehicle.

Bruges - or Brugge, as the locals refer to it - is one of several European communities that calls itself 'Venice of the North'. We were impressed by its canals, which are tranquil and lovely. These swans and other various birds thought so, too.

Picture-perfect.

Here are some common sights in downtown Bruges:

Horse and buggy rides past quaint little shops...

...which sell Belgian chocolates...

...and Belgian waffles, of course. (Psst... the bananas topping that my author ordered contained grand marnier. Yummmm!)

Bruges is famous for its lace. Many shops sell it and many homes and businesses have lace curtains and/or needlework pieces that show the richness of the local culture...

...these items are all handmade. Gorgeous.

Oh, Publisher Al. Now those are super-sized fries!

After Bruges, we were anxious to get to Holland. 

We had some special plans for the Netherlands. Several special plans, in fact.

First, we wanted to get to the town of Groesbeek in eastern Netherlands before 5 o'clock that day.

This involved driving across a tiny one-way bridge (the crossings were controlled by traffic signs showing who must yield the right-of-way)...

...through a forest which had a sign warning of wild boars crossing the road. 

Now that's not a sign I've seen in western Canada. I've been told we do have wild boars in some areas of southeast Saskatchewan, but I've never seen a sign for them.

Then again, I am a book... so enough said about that.

We saw this windmill as we arrived in Groesbeek, Netherlands. We were disappointed that it was the only windmill we saw in all our time in the Netherlands, but we did see a lot of wind turbines in the Netherlands and several other European countries. Between those and many fields full of solar panels, we determined that Europe is far ahead of Canada in alternative energy sources.

So we made it to this - the National Liberation Museum in Groesbeek - before it closed for the day. The man at the desk was reluctant to take the entry fee from my publishers because the museum was closing in an hour, but they convinced him to 'just take the money' and then point them in the direction of this important exhibit....

...a series of paintings by Calgary, Alberta artist Bev Tosh, called Canadian War Brides: A one-way passage to love. My publishers - who also published my friend The Little Coat: The Bob and Sue Elliott Story by Alan J. Buick - were so happy to see the exhibit that my author was like a little kid, smiling and jumping up and down with excitement. 

 And this was the panel that my publishers came to see.

Everdina (Sussie) Cretier was 10 years old when she received a little coat, made from a Canadian army blanket, as a gift from Canadian tank commander Bob Elliott and his crew on Christmas Day 1944. Decades later, Sussie/Sue and Bob reconnected and fell in love.Sue still had her little coat. She brought it with her to Canada and married Bob, her hero.

Although Sue is not technically a 'war bride', her story (as told by Alan Buick in my book friend The Little Coat) inspired Bev Tosh to create a portrait of Sue for her wonderful exhibit of Canadian war brides. (My author blogged about Bev's exhibit a few months ago, explaining that Bev used Bob and Sue's wedding photograph as the model for her painting.)

Each painting also has an accompanying  description of the war bride, and Sue's painting was at the end of the row, and the first one my publishers saw when they entered the exhibit room.

My publishers quickly pulled out the three The Little Coat books they brought with them (hiding them from me until just a couple days earlier, I might add), and they asked another museum visitor to take this photo of them with the exhibit.  

These are some of the other paintings and displays in Bev Tosh's exhibit, but Sue Elliott was the most important to my publishers, of course.

So we all went to bed very excited that night, and the next day, we were in for a very special visit. 

We drove to the nearby town of Rossum, going through the lock that Sussie Cretier-Elliott's family had crossed in 1944 to escape from the German soldiers to the safety of the Allied forces.

We drove into town and went to a seniors' complex - where we met this wonderful woman... 

...Sue Elliott, the woman who received that wartime gift of a coat from Alberta soldier Bob Elliott and his crew in 1944!

It was no surprise to us that Sue is just as feisty as ever. When we arrived, she apologized for her apartment being a bit untidy. (It wasn't, actually, but she thought it was.) She had just finished washing the bathroom floor, you see, because she can do it better than the people who are employed by the residence to do the cleaning, she said! What a character.

My publishers loved every minute they spent with Sue....  

...from the visiting and sharing of stories to the long walk we took around the neighbourhood.

Sue showed us where her late husband, Bob Elliott (the soldier in the story, who passed away in February 2013) used to go every day to sit and watch the ships and boats sailing down the canal. 

It is beautifully peaceful.

She took my publishers through town and showed them the shop where her father had his garage. The family's house used to be where the large window is on the first building on the right. Sue's brother Gerard runs the business now. 

Here, my friend The Little Coat looks back on the scene that author Alan Buick captures so well with his writing.

On our walk, Sue showed us some local vegetation. This was the first time my publishers had seen a walnut tree...

...and the first time they'd eaten blackberries off a bush. What's the matter, Publisher Al? Was that berry a little sour? If you look closely, it almost seems like Sue knew that when she handed it to him. Hee hee.

We had a lovely visit with the amazing Sue Elliott...

...but we had to say goodbye to her, leaving her with one of the three copies of The Little Coat book that my publishers had brought to Europe and set on the sand at Juno Beach. When we arrived home, my publishers put one of the two remaining copies (signed by Sue Elliott) on their bookshelf and gave one to author Alan Buick, along with some photos of their visit with Sue. Just as they surprised me with this vacation, they did not tell Alan ahead of time that they might be meeting Sue. Only her daughter Trudy knew of the possibility. (Thank you, Trudy, says my author.) Alan was pleased as punch with his gifts.

Anyway, back in Holland....

...we also drove to the nearby town of Alphen, to see the landscape of the area where Sue's family had sought safety from the Canadian soldiers. 

It was hard to imagine this beautiful land as it would have been during wartime.

Then we went to the Groesbeek Canadian War Cemetery, which honours so many who fought and died in that area during the Second World War.

Row after row of headstones.

So we leave you with this thought... as Sue told us about her and her beloved Bob's story written by Alan J. Buick in The Little Coat book - "This book is a warning to never let it happen again."

We will not forget.

Take care.

(Next blog in this series.)