Wooden Shoes for a Favourite Niece

At the end of the war, my great uncle Pete Marceau was billeted with a family in the Netherlands after spending six long years fighting overseas. They discovered he had a beloved niece Mary Lou (my mother) back home in Canada and crafted a pair of wooden shoes for him to send to her. Despite having almost no food themselves, they still managed to stuff the shoes with candy for the little girl. This act of generosity and appreciation still chokes me up to this day. A few years ago, my mother gave the wooden shoes to my daughter Holly with a letter describing them as part of her heritage.