Fonds 0165 - Roland Pivert fonds

Joseph Andre Aurile Roland Pivert was born August 7, 1929 in Castor, Alberta. He was five years old when his parents, Jeanne and Andre Pivert moved to Grande Prairie. His school years were spent at St. Joseph's. In 1939 the family moved to the Flying Shot Lake District and Roland spent a few years at Flying Shot Lake School. He later attended St. Joseph's High School;Roland's first experience with the military was with the army cadets in Grande Prairie, then the reserves of the 49 Loyal Edmonton Regiment as a Private (No. M518050). He joined the reserves in 1946 after his eighteenth birthday. From December 1949 to March 1950, Roland became part of the active force in a Canadian-American Arctic Tour called Exercise Sweetbriar. It involved 5,300 Canadian and American soldiers and airmen, and the scenario was that an enemy had seized Alaska and the combat team was assigned to secure the Alaska highway and its airfields from Whitehorse to Northway in Alaska. Summer that year was spent at the Western Command Reserve Force Corps and Command Camp at Wainwright. On February 19, 1951 Roland joined the Princess Patricia Regiment (Service No. SM 9806) and was sent to RCEME (Royal Canadian Electrical and Mechanical Engineers) in Kingston, Ontario for Basic Training. In 1952-53 he completed his NCO courses and Vehicle and Electrical Mechanical training at the same school. While in training, he took advantage of leave to visit New York City. In the summer of 1952, he accompanied a display of military equipment and technology, the Prairie Command Display, as it toured Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Northwestern Ontario. In 1953, Roland was sent to Korea as an electrician with 25 Canadian FD Dental Unit RCDC. He sailed on the U.S. Navy Service ship General C.C. Ballou on the 17th of April 1953, and spent the next 1 ½ years in Korea. Leave time was usually taken in Japan. Roland was discharged on October 18, 1954. After his return from Korea, Roland apprenticed as an electrician with Canadian Comstock Electrical Contractors in Edmonton and achieved Journeyman Electrician in 1957. He then returned to Grande Prairie to work for Cookshaw Electric. In 1965 he married Elizabeth Jean "Betty" Hammer and had one son, Kurtis Andrew in 1966. He later returned to university and became first a Master Electrician, then took Electrical Engineering. After Betty died in 1982, Roland married Gillian Conroy in 1988. He died in 2005.