Monday Monuments and Memorials – Wimereux Communal Cemetery, Wimereux, France

Anna Elizabeth Whitely, one of 13 WW1 women buried at Wimereux Communal Cemetery

12 of thirteen WW1 women buried at Wimereux Communal Cemetery

Each nurse, VAD and canteen worker tells a story.

Few women who served in WW1 are buried near the Western Front. Those who are can mostly be found in cemeteries near the coast, close to large hospitals or staging centres. They died mostly of disease, although some were certainly caught in the crossfire of war.

On 21 April 1918, Nursing Sister Anna Elizabeth Whitely died at Boulogne of a stomach tumour. She was buried at Wimereux Communal Cemetery, the first Canadian woman in WW1 whose final resting place was in France.

Monday Monuments and Memorials – John McCrae House, Guelph, ON

McCrae House, Guelph, Ontario

Monument to McCrae in McCrae House garden, Guelph

John McCrae’s grave in Wimereux Communal Cemetery, France

Yesterday, 28 January 2018, was the 100^th anniversary of John McCrae’s death. Best known for his poem, In Flanders Fields, McCrae was a physician and a soldier.

McCrae was born and raised in a limestone cottage at 108 Water St in Guelph. The home has been restored as the McCrae House museum. A monument in the garden is dedicated to his memory. Ontario Heritage plaques mark McCrae’s birthplace and final resting place.