Guelph - John McCrae Statue

 
Location:  Wellington County     N 43.543536    W -80.251507
Beside the Guelph Civic Museum, 52 Norfolk Street.
 

This sculpture is located at the Guelph Civic Museum, in the city of Guelph, Ontario, where John McCrae was born. The sculpture resembles Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae, with his dress as an Artillery officer and his medical bag nearby, as he writes. The statue shows the destruction of the battlefield and, at his feet, the poppies which are a symbol of Remembrance of the First World War and all armed conflict since.
The statue was promoted by the McCrae Statue Committee fundraising chair Lt.-Col. (Ret.) Michael McKay and former Navy veteran Bill Winegard, and produced by the Canadian sculptor Ruth Abernethy.

Lt.-Col. John McCrae, one of the important sons of the city of Guelph, born in 1872, was raised in Guelph, and his limestone cottage on Guelph’s Water Street is home to the McCrae House Museum, a part of Guelph Museums, comprising the Guelph Civic Museum. Guelph’s 11^th Field Artillery Regiment was once commanded by Capt. David McCrae, John McCrae’s father. Members of this regiment have served since the last world war in various roles, primarily peacekeeping efforts internationally. John McCrae succumbed to complications of pneumonia and meningitis in 1918.
* http://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/remembrance/memorials/national-inventory-canadian-memorials/details/9204

At the time of my visit the facade of the museum was under construction.  No additional signage or inscription was found in the vicinity of the statue, save for the famous poem "In Flanders Fields" etched into the statue itself.  A very moving statue and tribute to the man who gave us this solemn poem, before his death in the Great War.