Why I wear the Poppy each November

John Curran | Nov 11, 2020

Each year Canadians don their Poppies to honour our veterans and their sacrifice for our nation. Unfortunately, each year you also seem to see fewer and fewer of these iconic Canadian symbols on the lapels of passersby. That is sad. Everyone has a reason to remember and feel thankful if they look hard enough in their past.

For me, Remembrance Day starts with a long stare at the photo of the two young ladies on the hood of an old car riding through Kingston in the fall of 1945. Those women were Janice Gowdy (Bearance) on the left and Shirley Graves (Davidson), my Grandmother, on the right. Grandma’s parents were the Davidson’s who owned and operated Davidson’s Beach on Loughborough Lake. Davidson’s Road in Inverary, that was us, too.

Anyway, in the photo Grandma and her girlfriend were participating in an impromptu parade down Princess Street that broke out when the Second World War officially ended some 75 years ago. She was anxious to see her childhood sweetheart, Art Graves, again soon.

The photo of the striking couple on a beautiful June day in 1963 are my Grandparents, Shirley and Art Graves. Grandpa served in WWII, though both he and our entire family were fortunate that he didn’t end up seeing any active combat. When Grandpa Graves grew up, from a young age he learned to swim like a fish in Buck Lake and eventually became a certified lifeguard and accomplished competitive swimmer while attending KCVI with my Grandmother.

When he enlisted the military had a problem, too few soldiers actually knew how to swim. Grandpa was assigned to a base here in Canada and served his country by teaching other soldiers how to swim as part of their basic training. As I said, he knew he was lucky. In this photo, you can tell he’s proud to still fit into his uniform roughly 20 years later and he’s hamming it up for the camera as always.

When I remember on Nov. 11 each year, these are the people I think about.

If you aren’t as lucky as I am to have these great photographic reminders in your albums and family archives, there’s a good chance your family’s military history and connection to the Great Wars of the past has been lost to time.

Case in point, take the amazing discovery of Simon Creet. He’s the bearded fellow holding a certificate in the third photo.

“I found a bunch of documents at an antique show last year for William E. McLaughlin of 214 Stuart Street, Kingston,” he recently wrote on the Vintage Kingston Group facebook page.

The documents in question were the 1918 military discharge papers of Private McLaughlin.

“He went to France on the 5th of November 1915 and returned three years later at 17 years old, which means he was 14 when he signed up and went to fight in France,” he added. “Unreal – I have a 14-year-old son and the idea of him taking a rifle into the trenches to face snippers, bombs and mustard gas is simply unthinkable.”

In the final image included, you can see that McLaughlin was granted an honourable discharge because he was no longer fit for service due to sickness. Life amid the trench warfare of Europe was truly hell. Illness was common and often a death sentence, but the fact that McLaughlin made it home to receive care in Canada gives hope to the idea that he survived his ordeal and went on to lead a full and fruitful life after the war.

Sadly, these documents were separated from their rightful owners – the heirs of William E. McLaughlin – at some point in history and it is possible that his descendants know little or nothing about his extraordinary service. Fortunately, Creet isn’t just some collector showing off his treasures, he made the post to actively look for help trying to track down any remaining family related to Private McLaughlin.

“This brave lad fought with the 38th Canadian Infantry Battalion,” he said. “I will gladly ship all of these documents to the family of Mr. McLaughlin if we can find them.”

If you aren’t sure who to wear the Poppy for on Remembrance Day, think of 14-year-old Private McLaughlin on a French battlefield. A world away from his home in Frontenac County and fighting for our way of life – a life that he’d scarcely yet experienced, but that he was only too happy to put on the line for Canada.