Monday Monuments and Memorials – Ebenezer United Church, Milton, ON

New grave marker for Lachlan Kingsbury, Ebenezer Church

Orville O Fletcher, remembered in Ebenezer Cemetery

Harley Clifton Elsley remembered in Ebenezer Cemetery

For a few weeks this August, Great War 100 Reads is revisiting some sites, to explore additional or altered elements of remembrance.

Nine names are on the WW1 Honour Roll of Ebenezer Church, on Guelph Line in Nassagaweya Township (now part of the Town of Milton), Ontario. Orville Fletcher, Laughlin (Lachlan) Kingsbury, Stanley Fletcher, John Locker, Normal S Marshall, Ivan Noble, Herbert Oldfield, Harley Clifton Elsley and Charles Norrish were all sons of local farming families. Three were killed in the course of their service. All three are remembered in the adjacent cemetery and on the Nassagaweya cenotaph.

Monday Monuments and Memorials – Lisgar Collegiate Institute, Ottawa

Remembering over 130 former Lisgar students who died in WW1

Alexis Hannum Helmer inspired In Flanders Fields

Memorial tympanum over Lisgar library entrance

Honouring over 900 former Lisgar CI students who served in WW1

Lisgar Collegiate Institute has a history in Ottawa longer than Canada itself: founded in 1843, it just celebrated its 175^th anniversary. Students entering the main doors of the school at 29 Lisgar St cannot help but turn their minds to WW1. In Memorial Hall they are surrounded by reminders of alumni and alumnae who served in the war.

Monday Monuments and Memorials – HMHS Llandovery Castle and Halifax Memorial

Halifax Memorial remembers those lost at sea

14 nursing sisters killed on Llandovery Castle, remembered on Halifax Memorial

The Llandovery Castle served as a hospital ship during WW1, ferrying wounded soldiers from England back to Canada. On 27 June 1918, nearing the end of its voyage from Halifax, Nova Scotia to Liverpool, England, the ship was torpedoed by a German submarine off the Irish coast. The passengers rushed to lifeboats, but the submarine surfaced and destroyed most of the lifeboats. Only 24 survivors lived to tell the tale.

Amongst the 234 dead in Canada’s worst naval disaster of WW1: all 14 of the Canadian nursing sisters on board.

Monday Monuments and Memorials – War Memorial, Beckwith Township, ON

War memorial in Beckwith Park – McDiarmid, Hughton, O’Shea

War memorial in Beckwith Park – McLaren, Dowdall, McMillan, Boreland

War memorial in Beckwith Park – Smith, Officer

Beckwith Township, population about 7600, forms the easterly part of Lanark County, just west of Ottawa. The war memorial erected by the township remembers 12 names, nine from WW1. The monument has moved over the years. It now stands in Beckwith Park, on the 9^th Line about 2 km east of Hwy 15 and Black’s Corners, surrounded by a vast stretch of baseball diamonds and playing fields.

Monday Monuments and Memorials – The Last Post, Collingwood, ON

Collingwood war memorial

The Last Post, Collingwood

Honor Roll includes nursing sister Gertrude Andrews

Honor Roll includes nursing sister Mae Sampson

Collingwood Honor Roll

The Last Post is the name of the statue that tops the WW1 war memorial in Collingwood, Ontario. It stands in front of the old train station (now the Collingwood Museum), at 45 St Paul St. The driveway behind it is Veterans Cres.

Monday Monuments and Memorials – Ontario Military Hospital Nursing Sisters, Queen’s Park, Toronto

Nurses Mary McKenzie, Sarah Garbutt, Margaret Lowe, Dorothy Baldwin and Matilda Green remembered at Queen’s Park

Mary A McKenzie, Sarah Ellen Garbutt, Margaret Lowe, Dorothy Mary Baldwin, Matilda Green. These five women are remembered on a brass tablet in the Ontario Legislative Building (Queen’s Park), on the second floor of the west wing, near the landing outside the Legislative Chamber. They were nursing sisters who had served in the Ontario Military Hospital at Orpington, England, and who died during the war.

Monday Monuments and Memorials – Celtic Cross, St Matthews Church, Halifax, NS

Memorial Cross on lawn of St Matthew’s Church, Halifax

The souls of the faithful who have died in the service of their country rest forever in the lap of God.

Names on St Matthew’s Church Cross

Names on St Matthew’s Church Cross

A Celtic cross in memory of “Her Heroic Dead 1914-1918” graces the north lawn of St Matthew’s United Church, on Barrington St at the corner of Spring Garden Rd in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Decorative Celtic knots form the cross. Major battle names – Ypres, Vimy, Somme, Mons – form the nimbus. The reverse side of the base assures us that “The souls of the faithful who have died in the service of their country rest forever in the lap of God.”

Fourteen parishioners are named on the monument, including three nursing sisters and at least one set of siblings.

Monday Monuments and Memorials – Mary Katherine (Minnie) Gallaher, Ottawa

Gallaher family plot, Beechwood Cemetery, Ottawa

Minnie Gallaher, Beechwood Cemetery, Ottawa

Minnie Gallaher was one of 14 nursing sisters killed on June 27, 1918, when a German submarine torpedoed the hospital ship HMHS Llandovery Castle and its lifeboats. The sinking was the largest Canadian naval disaster in WW1 (counting the number of deaths) and became a rallying cry in the Last 100 Days offensive.

Gallaher’s body was not recovered. This marker at her family plot in Beechwood Cemetery, Ottawa, reads: “Nursing sister Minnie K Gallaher drowned in sinking of Hospital Ship Llandovery Castle June 27th, 1918. Greater love hath no man than this that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

Finding the Forty-Seven, Debbie Marshall’s blog to honour the Canadian nurses who died while serving in WW1, is well worth a look.