Sunday 25 July 2021

Embro

 

Location:  Oxford County     N 43.15615   W -80.89944

In Memorial Park, 118 St. Andrew Street.

 

This memorial was originally dedicated to those from West Zorra Township and the community of Embro who where lost in the First World War, but the plaque was updated after the Second World War to include those lost in that war.  

The memorial park also features two Ontario Historical Plaques and a playground.  The history of this small farming community is well preserved in the local buildings and plaques.


 

Marker text:

Front:

THEIR NAME LIVETH FOR

EVER MORE

1914 - 1919


THE GLORIOUS DEAD

1914 - 1918

A. ALWAY                           W.J. BEAGLEY

C.S. BRECKENRIDGE       R.S. BRICKWOOD

A. BUSHNELL                    F. CAMPBELL

A. CUMMINGS                   M. DENNIS

R.D. FEATHERSTONE       D.M. GERRIE

R.E. HILL                             W.L. HILL

F. HIGGINS                          H. HUNTLEY

A. JENKINS                         L.J. LAUR

J. McDONALD                    D. McKAY

A.E. McKAY                        G.O. McKENZIE

J.A. McPHERSON               L. MASTERS

W. MORRISON                   A.A. MURRAY

R.S. MURRAY                     R. READHEAD

A. REID                                W.J. ROSS

A.T. RUTHERFORD            Q.R. SUTHERLAND

J. TAYLOR                            A. TEAM

F. THACKABERRY             H.T. WARNER

R.A. WHITE                          J. WILLISON

L.T. WILLIAMS

 

1939 - 1945

JEAN B. ATKINSON

D.H. BLACKMAN                G.C. GIBB

G. HUME                               W.S. HEAL

C. KALBFLEISCH                 L.B. LANGDON

H.J. MORRISON                    H.D. MCLEOD

A. RHYNARD                        J.E. SHEPHERD

 

IN MEMORY OF THE MEN

FROM WEST ZORRA AND EMBRO

WHO DIED IN THE GREAT WAR

 

 

 

 

Right side:

VIMY RIDGE

PASSCHENDAELE

AMIENS

ARRAS

DROCOURT

DURY

BOURLON WOOD

 

 

 

 

Left side:

YPRES

ST. JULIEN

SANCTUARY WOOD

ST. ELOI

COURCELETTE

SOMME

 






 

 

 




Sunday 18 July 2021

Toronto - Malvern Collegiate

 

 

 

Location City of Toronto     N 43.68275   N -79.29358

On the front of the school, 55 Malvern Avenue.

 

This memorial is dedicated to the "Lost Boys of Malvern", those who left this east Toronto neighbourhood to fight in the Great War and never returned.

The following article is from CBC News in 2010:

"Outside Malvern Collegiate Institute, a high school in a quiet and leafy neighbourhood in Toronto's east end, stands a beautiful but battered statue of a young man in his prime — a tribute to the more than 60,000 Canadians who died fighting in Europe in the First World War.

The figure wears a toga, with one arm outstretched holding a chain that is meant to signify the shackles of militarism. The other arm, which once held a sword, is broken off at the elbow, with a rusted metal rod sticking out. Faded and barely legible are 25 names engraved on the base of the statue, the names of the boys of Malvern Collegiate who died in the war.

Students walk past the statue every day. Many are able to explain what it represents, but over the years the cenotaph, which has been around for almost 90 years, has become just another part of the landscape rather than a revered place.

The Malvern cenotaph is one of hundreds of war memorials across the country, built by small communities after the Great War to honour their "lost boys." With no bodies to bury at home (they were buried in the killing fields of France and Belgium), the cenotaphs served as substitute gravesites. Cenotaphs took various forms: some were monuments, some plaques, and many others were figurines of soldiers.

But the Malvern statue is one of the more beautiful, say its admirers, those in the community who have been lobbying over the years to get financing from the  federal government, the school board, and anybody else, to fix it. The statue was created by a famous Canadian sculptor, Emanuel Hahn, the preeminent designer of war memorials of the 1920s. (He also later designed coins, and came up with the caribou design on our quarter and the Bluenose schooner on our dime.) 

When the sculpture was unveiled with great fanfare at a ceremony in 1922, it unified a community in mourning. On one side of the base was engraved: "These at the call of King and Country lost all that was dear to them, endured hardness, faced danger and finally passed out of the sight of men by the path of duty."

East Toronto, as it was called then, had a population of about 5,000 (most of Scottish and English stock). Of that number, 1,000 men went to war, says Carole Stimmell, editor of the community newspaper the Beach Metro News, who has written about the statue and researched the Malvern boys it commemorates.

Weather and the passage of time have taken their toll on the sculpture. More recently there has also been petty vandalism and damage caused by the fact that the statue made for excellent climbing"....

 

Unfortunately, in recent years the monument is more well known for the constant need of repair due to weathering, but mostly due to vandalism, a sad statement on the education given beyond the walls of this school.  Hopefully this memorial can be restored to its former glory in time for its 100th anniversary in May 2022.




Marker text:

Front:

TO THE MEMORY OF

THOSE FROM THIS SCHOOL

WHO LAID DOWN THEIR LIVES

IN THE GREAT WAR

1914 - 1918

MALVERN AVENUE

COLLEGIATE INSTITUTE

 

 

 

 

 

Left side:

CECIL PUGHANNS

WILLIAM KENEDY COMMINS  MC DSO

GORDON PARSONS DAVIDSON

JOHN PATRICK DAVIDSON

GORDON EZRA DUKE

MARTIN JAMES FLOOD

CECIL JOHN FRENCH  MC

ARTHUR PATRICK GORMAN

WILLIAM ALBERT HEAL

WILLIAM JOHN HIRD

WALTER THOMAS HUTCHINSON

WILFRED JOHN JONES

ROY WESLEY KERR

 

 



Right side:

CHARLES SIMPSON LENNOX

CHARLES WILLIAM MABBOTT

HARRY GEORGE MANSFIELD

CHARLES PERCY MAY

ROBERT FOUNTAIN MACLUCKIE

DONOVAN LAURIER SISLEY

ARTHUR JACKSON SMITH SISLEY

HAROLD WILLIAM SPENCE  MM

JOSEPH ROLLIT TAYLOR

JOHN ARCHIBALD TREBILCOCK  MC

ALSEY JOSEPH TREBILCOCK

MURRAY WATSON

 













 





Saturday 10 July 2021

Ivanhoe

 

Location:  Hastings County     N 44.39545   W -77.47142

In the town park, on the west side of Highway 62, just north of Slab Street.

This memorial is found in a very small hamlet with a big history.  Ivanhoe is most well-known for its cheese factory, started in the 1870's by Arctic Explorer Henry Gauen.  The main part of the memorial features a large piece of grey granite, engraved with the words of Remembrance for those of Huntingdon Township who served for their country.  Also found here is a sign dedicated to Stewart Kerby who died on duty with the R.C.A.F. in WWII.  This an outstanding memorial for such a small community of farmers and Mennonite people, the township should be proud of the efforts made to keep the motto "Lest We Forget".

 


Marker text:

Stone:

Lest

We Forget


1914 - 1918

1939 - 1945

1950 - 1953


"They shall

beat their swords

into ploughshares."


IN REMEMBRANCE OF THOSE

OF HUNTINGDON TOWNSHIP

WHO SERVED OR MADE THE

SUPREME SACRIFICE IN

DEFENCE OF FREEDOM.

 



Sign:

Warrant Officer Michael Stewart Kerby, RCAF, was born

in Ivanhoe, Ontario, worked on the farm and in the

hardware store business when he joined the RCAF at

Toronto.  He received his training at Picton, Trenton and

Camp Borden, to go overseas in October 1941.  Kerby

served with the RCAF as a Flight Sergeant in Great

Britain and in the Middle East.  When in Egypt he

sustained a crash but was saved , winning the Order of the

Flying Boot award.  He returned to England and on May

12, 1943, he was killed in England while on active duty.

Kerby attended West Huntingdon and Ivanhoe Schools,

where he played hockey.  He was promoted to the rank of 

Warrant Officer on April 7, 1943, and conferred

posthumously.  Son of Michael and Minnie, siblings of

Joseph, Mary, Eileen, Helen, Gerald and John Kerby.

This plaque is commemorated thanks to Brian Long,

Brock Kerby the Huntingdon Rec Committee

 

STEWART KERBY

1915     First Sgt. Pilot of Huntingdon Twp.     1943 











Tuesday 6 July 2021

Ottawa - The Canadian Phalanx

 

Location:  City of Ottawa   N 45.41968   W -75.70553

On Lyon Street, between West Memorial Building and East Memorial Building.

 

 

During the first World War, a committee headed by Lord Beaverbrook commissioned a vast collection of documentary art to commemorate Canada's participation in the war. Given as a gift to Canada in 1920, the Canadian War Memorial collection includes the marble relief entitled "The Canadian Phalanx" by the Yugoslavian sculptor, Ivan Mestrovic. The granite architecture frame in which it was set was designed by D.A. Topolski in 1972. (City of Ottawa Archives)

The three and one-half tonne stone panel is almost three metres long and two metres high. The National Capital Region architect B.A. Topolski designed the relief's grey granite frame, reminiscent of the towering pylons of the Canadian Memorial at Vimy Ridge.

***from:  https://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/remembrance/memorials/national-inventory-canadian-memorials/details/3168

 

***Photos by Louise Bellec