From the News

Dated: July 5, 1916

WON BRIDE IN FRANCE

Canadian D.C.M. Learns to Lisp New Language

The publication "Canada" narrates the following interesting love story: Learning to lisp his first few French words guided by the laughing lips and admonished by the threatening finger of a dark-eyed demoiselle of Lille, and later espousing more than the language of her country, was the experience of a young Canadian hero, Private Peter William Houghton, D.C.M.

He first met his teacher at Loos, where she was a refugee, and he married her at St. Helens, Lancashire. The bride was Mlle. Jeanne Elise Torrez, of Bailleul, France, from which town she and her parents were driven by the invading Huns, an aunt of hers having been killed by a Hun bomb, and an uncle being now a prisoner in Germany. The bridegroom came over from Canada with the 1st Battalion of the first contingent. Born at St. Helens, he was taken while very young to Canada, and being romantically inclined, it was to St. Helens that he returned to be married. The D.C.M. was on short leave and on his return to the front left his bride in St. Helens, where she set herself industriously to learn English.