Peace Tower, Ottawa

In this week of remembrance, may we learn from war as we strive for peace … and freedom and democracy and equality and justice.

Monday Monuments and Memorials – St Luke’s Anglican Church, Ottawa

A church built in 1904 to house a parish that has served the community for 150 years remembers its parishioners who served the country in WW1. St Luke’s Anglican Church is at 760 Somerset St W in Ottawa.

A brass plaque is dedicated “in loving memory of the men of St Luke’s Parish who gave their lives in the Great War.” Twenty names are listed: Frederick W Beer, Percy R Cooper, John H Cummings, John J Dwyer, Herby W Fregin, Harry K Graham, William J Gallichan, Thomas B Giles, Samuel T Greenway, James T Greenway, G Harvey, William Hellier, Henry Kerr, Edmund H Milks, William H Shapter, Frederick C Sparks, Frederick G Thomas, James E Thomas, George M Tyrell and Percy N Wigmore.

Monday Monuments and Memorials – Peace Tower, Parliament Hill, Ottawa

Peace Tower, Parliament Hill, Ottawa

We were preparing not Peace only, but Eternal Peace. There was about us the halo of some divine mission. We must be alert, stern, righteous and ascetic. We were bent on doing great, permanent noble things.

Harold Nicolson, British delegate to 1919 Paris peace conference

This is not a peace treaty, it is an armistice for 20 years.

Marshal Ferdinand Foch, at the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, 1919

Monday Monuments and Memorials – Peace Tower, Parliament Hill, Ottawa

Peace Tower, Ottawa, in colours of Ukrainian flag

In solidarity with Ukraine.

Peace. Democracy. Sovereignty. International Law.

Monday Monuments and Memorials – Peace Tower, Parliament Hill, Ottawa

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  Poppy Drop 2021, Peace Tower, Parliament Hill, Ottawa

The memory of those who fell in the great war will be reverenced in Canada this year by the wearing of a red poppy on Armistice Day, according to plans now being formulated by the Dominion Command, Great War Veterans’ Association. The inauguration of this custom will, war veterans believe, accomplish three worthy objects: First, the custom of wearing a memorial poppy on Armistice Day; secondly, as the poppies will be sold for nominal sums, it will supply a means of providing relief funds for the unemployed this winter; and thirdly, as the poppies will be purchased from the French war orphans, it will go a long way toward the relief of distress in that country.

Canadian Press dispatch, 19 September 1921. Published in Edmonton Journal, Ottawa Journal, Saskatoon Daily Star, Toronto Globe, Victoria Daily Times and others.

Monday Monuments and Memorials – Dancy Cant and Helena MacLaughlin, Beechwood Cemetery, Ottawa ON

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  Dancy MacLaughlin Cant, Beechwood Cemetery, Ottawa

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  Helena MacLaughlin, Beechwood Cemetery, Ottawa

This October, in honour of Women’s History Month, I am visiting the graves of WW1 nursing sisters buried in the National Captial Region.

Sisters Dancy Florence and Helena Augustine MacLaughlin were born in Ottawa, daughters of Thomas MacLaughlin and Augustine Desrochers MacLaughlin. The sisters are both buried in the military section of Beechwood Cemetery in Ottawa.

Monday Monuments and Memorials – Laura Gamble, Johnston’s Corners Community Cemetery, Ottawa

Nursing Sister Laura Gamble, Johnston’s Corners Cemetery

For the month of October, I am visiting WW1 Nursing Sisters buried in the National Capital Region.

Laura Adelaide Gamble was born in Wakefield, Quebec in September 1887, the eldest of five daughters of Rev Robert Gamble and Adelaide McGillivray. She graduated from the Toronto General Hospital School of Nursing in 1910. She enlisted in May 1915 with the hospital organized by the University of Toronto (No. 4 Canadian General Hospital) and sailed for England that same month. From there, she was dispatched to the Mediterranean, where she served on a hospital ship and in Salonica. She also served for a time in England and France.

In 1917, she was awarded the Royal Red Cross 2^nd class (ARRC): “As Nursing Sister in charge of the officers’ wards she showed the greatest possible tact and extreme devotion to duty” and mentioned in despatches. Gamble’s war diary is now held by Library and Archives Canada.

Monday Monuments and Memorials – Munster Union Cemetery, Ottawa, ON

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  Loyal Orange Lodge monument in Munster Union Cemetery

Continuing summer travels close to home, to the many war memorials in Eastern Ontario.

Munster is a village in the former Goulbourn Township, now part of the City of Ottawa. The Munster Union Cemetery was established in 1886 as a non-denominational burial ground.

In 1925, the local Loyal Orange Lodge (LOL 917) erected a monument in the cemetery, to remember three members of Lodge families killed in WW1. Since then the monument has been the site of Remembrance Day services in the village.

Monday Monuments and Memorials – Vimy Memorial, Centre Block, Parliament Hill, Ottawa

Kaiser Wilhelm and masked spy on Vimy window, Ottawa

Vimy Ridge remembered by Centre Block stone carver, Ottawa

On February 3, 1916, a fire burned the Centre Block of Ottawa’s Parliament Buildings to the ground. The exact cause of the fire was never definitively determined. With the country at war, rumours quickly spread that the fire stemmed from enemy sabotage. Careless smoking and faulty wiring were also suspects.

Rebuilding started immediately, with the cornerstone laid on 1 Sep 1916.

On a snowy Easter Monday, 9 April 1917, the four divisions of the Canadian Corps fought together for the first (and only) time, in the Battle of Vimy Ridge, part of the Battle of Arras. Training and tactics won the ridge by 12 April, but at the cost of about 3,600 Canadian lives.

Monday Monuments and Memorials – Osgoode Township Cenotaph, Metcalfe, ON

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  WW1 monument for Osgoode Township in Metcalfe, Ontario

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  WW1 and WW2 monuments in Metcalfe, Ontario

WW1 and WW2 monuments stand in front of the former Osgoode Township Hall at 8243 Victoria St (Regional Rd 6) in Metcalfe, now part of the City of Ottawa.

The WW1 monument was erected by the Metcalfe Red Cross Society in 1921. It is dedicated “in memory of the men of Osgoode Township who gave their lives in the Great War.” Nineteen names are in lead inset letters on the front panel and seven more names on the back of the monument. These seven and four more were carved into the granite plinths on the front when the monument was restored in 2012.