Guelph - Lt. Col. John McCrae

Location:  Wellington County  N 43 32.171  W 080 14.697
At the corner of Water Street and McCrae Boulevard.

This is Remembrance Day.  Around the country and the world, people will take time to remember and honour those brave souls who ever served, fought and died, to ensure our freedom.  At most memorial services, there will be a reading of the famous poem, In Flanders Fields, written during the horror of World War I, by Lt. Colonel John McCrae, a military doctor serving near the front.
This memorial is at the birthplace of Dr. McCrae, which features a beautiful garden, stone fencing, a large memorial with his famous words inscribed, and a museum in the home of his childhood.  Born here in November 1982, he died of pneumonia in January 1918 while in command of No. 3 Canadian General Hospital near Boulonge, France.  He was buried a short distance from his post, at Wimereaux Cemetery, with full military honours.  McCrae's gravestone is placed flat, as are all the others in the section of the cemetery, because of the unstable sandy soil.

The house is now a National Historic Site, and he is also considered a National Historic Person, and as such, two National plaques grace the grounds, as well as a well-decorated memorial.

Marker text:
Memorial:
ERECTED
TO
THE MEMORY
OF
LIEUTENANT COLONEL
JOHN MCCRAE
PHYSICIAN, AUTHOR, SOLDIER
BORN GUELPH, ONTARIO
30TH NOV. 1872
DIED
ON ACTIVE SERVICE
28TH JAN. 1918
BURIED IN
WIMEREAUX CEMETERY
FRANCE

LEST WE FORGET
 

National Historic Person Plaque:
LT COL JOHN McCRAE
Canadian poet, physician and soldier, McCrae was born in this house November 30, 1872. He died at Wimereux, France, January 28, 1918. While Medical Officer to the 1st Artillery Brigade, he wrote his famous poem "In Flanders Fields" in a dugout near Ypres in April, 1915.
 


National Historic Site Plaque:
McCRAE HOUSE

This limestone cottage was the birthplace of John McCrae, author of In Flanders Fields, the famous poem written in May 1915 during the Second Battle of Ypres. Built in 1858, the house is a typical mid-nineteenth-century Ontario cottage with its trellised verandah and cedar shingle roof. The exterior has been carefully restored to its appearance in the 1870s, when it was the McCrae family home.

 

IN FLANDERS FIELDS