Category Archives: Jim Higgins Remembered

People who knew Jim, write about their memories.

Phoenix Rising: Un niño español en la España devastada por la guerra y el soldado canadiense que le salvó la vida (3 minutos de lectura)

Este artículo se publicó en inglés en julio de 2020. Se tradujo con Google Translate y publicado el 12 de octubre de 2022. Luchando por La Democracia de Jim Higgins fue publicado por PUZ el 27 de septiembre de 2022.

***This piece was published in English in July 2020***

Sucedió por primera vez en enero de 2018. Estaba en una cena organizada por mi amiga Katrina en San Miguel de Allende, México. Katrina había dirigido la conversación hacia mi proyecto de publicar las memorias de mi padre, ahora previstas para el otoño de 2020 y tituladas Fighting for Democracy: The True Story of Jim Higgins (1907-1982), A Canadian Activist in Spain’s Civil War. (Actualización: el libro se publicó en septiembre de 2020).

Les estaba contando a los otros invitados un poco sobre él, cuando un compañero canadiense preguntó: “¿Cómo se llamaba tu padre?” Dije: “Jim Higgins”. Él respondió: “Estoy seguro de que acabo de escuchar sobre él en las noticias”. Dije: “¡Imposible!”. y rápidamente se olvidó de él.

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1968: Postcards from Franco’s Spain

It was September 1968, and I’d been away from Canada for exactly a year. That previous winter, I’d studied French in Paris at L’Alliance Francaise, while living with a family and working as their au pair, or nanny.  Now, Paris was my base for exploring Europe on five dollars a day which meant hitchhiking, youth hostels and occasional meals consisting of the contents of cookie packets.

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My Radical Dad: A Father’s Day Tribute

In the 1950s, he was Daddy, the quiet father who worked hard to provide for his family. At home in Peterborough, Ontario, he somehow found time to fix up our old two-storey clapboard house and tend a big vegetable garden for our family.

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“Seasonable Greetings!”

Moving. Gripping. Inspiring. These are just some of the descriptors I’ve heard from strangers who’ve read “Fighting for Democracy.” Friends have jumped in, too; some of whom wouldn’t normally read a book like this.

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Honouring War Veterans Who Stood Up to Hitler

This Remembrance Day, as always, the veterans of the Mackenzie Papineau Battalion are not amongst those officially honoured here in Canada; unless they also fought in the First or Second World Wars, as many did.

Today, November 11, 2020, I went to the Mac-Pap memorial in Toronto on the grounds of the Ontario Legislature to honour them in my own small way. The memorial is a boulder from the battlefields near the town of Gandesa Spain; a place where the Mac-Paps fought and where many lost their lives.

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A Funeral, a Stranger and an Inspiration

I remember it well. It was a sunny day, thirty-eight years ago today, and much hotter than usual for late September. I was sweltering in my red wool sweater and pleated plaid skirt, and standing with my siblings and a few others in Peterborough’s Little Lake cemetery where my father, Jim Higgins, was to be buried beside our mother. There was one person I didn’t know—a young woman—and it’s only in recent years that I’ve come to know who she was and why she was there.

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Phoenix Rising: A Spanish Boy in War Torn Spain and the Canadian Soldier Who Saved His Life (3 min read)

It first happened in January 2018. I was at a dinner party hosted by my friend, Katrina, in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Katrina had steered the conversation towards my plans to publish my father’s memoir which is primarily about his experience of the depression of the 1930s and the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939).

I was telling the other guests a bit about him, when a fellow Canadian asked, “What was your father’s name?”  I said, “Jim Higgins.” He replied, “I’m sure I just heard about him on the news.”  I said, “Impossible!” and promptly forgot about it.

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Why Would a Canadian Spanish Civil War Veteran Bike From The West Coast to New York in 1940?

I’m thrilled to have a feature article, A Mac-Pap Amongst the Lincolns, published in The Volunteer, the magazine of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in New York, Click on it, and learn why Jim Higgins ended up seeking refuge there during the winter of 1940/41.

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The “007 Stuff”

“Just the facts, ma’am.” That line came from Dragnet—a 1950s TV show with detective Joe Friday. I was reminded of it a few months ago when retired academic Ray Hoff, one of my invaluable fact-checkers, cautioned me against speculating about what Jim Higgins was up to in the Spanish Civil War, especially after the international brigades were withdrawn. I was advised to “forget the 007 stuff”. Good advice. Still……

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Who was Captain Medina?

“Captain Medina was the sort of officer soldiers dream about commanding them, but seldom do. I had been in some tough situations with him, and we saved one another’s lives more than once. I was shifted around so much that most of the time I did not know where I was or who the comrades were who were fighting with me. He was a constant presence, and I will always consider him the best officer I had alongside me in battle.” Jim Higgins

Higgins reported to Captain Jose Medina for much of the time he was in Spain and, in his soon-to-be-published memoir, writes about one of those times when Medina (and his horse) probably saved his life when he was caught behind enemy lines. Besides the serious business of saving each other’s lives, Medina once figured in a humorous incident involving Higgins.

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