he went to see a movie & found his wife

Going through a family history that my grandfather wrote I came across quite the love story of the great-grandparents I never met.

“Auguste joined the Montréal Police.  It was while walking the beat on Côte-des-Neiges that he suffered gunshot wounds.

The shooting occurred on March 11, 1914.  Auguste and two other constables were called to St. Laurent to investigate the robbery of a butcher store.  The three managed to catch up to the four robbers making their getaway in a horse and sleigh on Côte-des-Neiges.  One constable grabbed the reins of the horse, while the other two approached the robbers.  Without warning the latter fired, killing the constable standing next to Constable (Auguste) Guyon.  He suffered three gunshot wounds and was taken in critical condition to hospital.  There they removed two of the bullets, but the third, lodged two inches from his heart, was judged better left.  He lived with this bullet next to his heart for the rest of his life.

One of the consequences of his injury was that he was allowed free entry into the movie palaces of the day.  And that’s how he met Mary Warren.

As recounted elsewhere, she was the cashier at the Dominion theatre, when she spotted this man walking in without paying.  She called the manager, who explained why the man had a free pass, and introduced them.  The courtship started then and there.  Must have been difficult, however, since neither one was proficient in the other’s language.

They were married on June 8, 1915 in Montréal.  He was still recuperating from his wounds, and on a small pension.  They rented a small flat near Lafontaine Park.  They didn’t have enough money for a honeymoon trip, so without telling anybody, they sat around the park in the daytime, then stole off to their flat at night.”

When she died in 1968 they had been married for 53 years.

It should also be noted that the idea using a horse & sleigh as your getaway vehicle might be the best thing I’ve read in a long time.