The Second World War was a time of uncertainty across Canada. People wanted to back the war effort and if they weren't going overseas to fight, they wanted to be ready to help out as best they could.

Last week's mystery photo reflects the situation. It was taken in the fall of 1940, about one year after Canada declared war on Germany, and shows 37 area women taking part in an eight-week course in automotive maintenance and repairs that was being offered at Halwig Motors in Kitchener, a General Motors dealership headed by Arthur C. Halwig.

Jamie Patterson of Kitchener has a copy of the original print. He found it in the home of his late mother, Helen Patterson (born Helen Fisher) following her death and spotted her face, second from the right in the second row.

“I had never seen it before,” Patterson says. His mother never mentioned taking part in such a program, he adds, but he was curious to learn more.

There was no information with the photo. The only clues were the big GM sign and the badge on each woman's coveralls with the letters “VADC.”

Two readers were able to help.

David Bricker of RR 2, Petersburg, identified his mother, Luella Bricker, fourth from the left in the front row. And he possesses a “very elaborate” certificate she received after taking the course. It's dated Oct. 7, 1940, and signed by J.E. Johnson, vice-president of General Motors Products of Canada, and Arthur C. Halwig.

“This certifies,” the document reads, “that Luella E. Bricker has successfully completed an eight-week course of study and practical training in the operation and maintenance of motor vehicles in order to prepare herself for voluntary wartime service for her country and has qualified as a member of the Volunteer Auxiliary Drivers Corps in the City of Kitchener.”

His mother “wanted to get into a lot of things,” to help the war effort, remembers Bricker, a grandson of Aaron Bricker, mayor of the town of Berlin (now Kitchener) in 1906 and 1907.

Victor Hobbs of Cambridge is pretty certain that his late father, William Henry Hobbs, is the man on the left in the top row of the photo. He has seen this photo or one like it in the past and believes the girls in the top row were being trained as “steel mechanics” to repair tank wheels and axles.

His father, he says, was a self-taught mechanic who was a manager at Halwig Motors. He remembers him expressing the view that some of the women shouldn't have taken the course if they didn't want to get their hands dirty and break some nails.

William Hobbs later operated his own business, Hobbs Garage, at 244 Mill St., Kitchener, now the site of Towne Collision.

General Motors ran the VADC program at dealerships across the country. One news report from July 1940 included the prediction that by year's end there would be 2,000 graduates from more than 60 classes held in 25 cities.

Another report in the Observer newspaper of Coaticook, Que. included the following:

“Automotive officials emphasize that the Volunteer Auxiliary Drivers Corps is in no sense a government or military undertaking, and no person taking the course obligates herself to make any use of the knowledge and experience thus acquired.

“The purpose of the course is not to enrol recruits for the army or its allied services, but merely to give a group of Canadian girls and women such training as will make them more readily acceptable to the military authorities in the event that the need for women chauffeurs or ambulance drivers ever arises.”

Patterson says he doesn't remember his mother being particularly interested in automotive repairs. But she did work for many years at the motor vehicle licence bureau on Belmont Avenue in Kitchener before retiring in 1983.

In the early 1950s A. C. Halwig Motors was located on Victoria Street South, between King and Charles streets and along Hall's Lane, where U-Haul Co. Ltd. has an outlet today.

But earlier it was around the corner on King Street. In old Vernon's city directories for Kitchener, it first shows up in the 1934 book, where it's listed as a GM dealership at 445 King St. W. for Oldsmobile and Pontiac cars, also selling Norge refrigerators and De Forest-Crosley radios.

In 1955 Halwig sold the dealership to the brothers Ralph and Jack Forbes, who operated Forbes Motors on Victoria Street South until 1965 when they moved the dealership to Weber Street South in Waterloo.

Halwig died in 1974. Is that him at the centre of the picture? We just don't know.

Got a story about this week's photo? Or an old photo for this column. Contact Jon Fear at jfear@therecord.com or 519-895-5613.