Calendar
Remembrance Day Feature Pgs. 9-13
Lake Country
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Winfield, Oyama, Okanagan Centre and Carrs Landing since 1951
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November 11, 2015
Memories remain of Second World War veteran
Inside
KEVIN PARNELL
The new curator of the Lake Country Art Gallery has already started her job. ...............................
2
Another Christmas is in the cards for the Lake Country Food Bank. The new building is expected to be complete by early in the New Year. ...............................
7
Flyers ■ Coopers
Ray Willett has a lot of memories of his father. And he’s not the only one in Lake Country who fondly remembers the genuine antics of Vergil Willett, a Second World War veteran and one of the founding members of the Oceola Fish and Game Club, who passed away last month at the age of 95. Vergil Willett was an anti-aircraft gunner in the Second World War. Blessed with the keen eyesight of a sniper and a knack for being in the right place at the right time, Willett served from Oct. 30 of 1941 to June 4, 1946 when he was honourably discharged as a corporal with several medals to his name. But the one medal that might tell more of Vergil’s story than the Defence, Volunteer Service and War Medal that
were bestowed upon him, was a medal given him to the rest of the veterans in Lake Country, years after he returned from service. During what became an annual poker game held by the veterans in the area, Willett’s buddies presented their generous friend with a medal they had made for him. Emblazoned on the makeshift medal was an inscription, honouring Willett for “evading commanding officers and doing damn well whatever he pleased.” And that was who Vergil Willett was. He would give you the shirt off his back, could take down four deer before his hunting buddies could even get a shot off and he always had a smile that hinted of his playful nature.
A VETERAN’S SON, Ray Willett with a picture of his father Vergil, along with a letter Vergil penned home in 1944 from England where he was stationed in the Second World War. Vergil passed away last month, aged 95.
KEVIN PARNELL/LAKE COUNTRY CALENDAR
SEE MEMORIES A10
For a schedule of Remembrance Day ceremonies see page A10
▼ DUCKS UNLIMITED
■ Jysk
Oyama family happy Marsh Lake will be preserved
■ Rona
KEVIN PARNELL
■ Safeway
Longtime Oyama resident Joyce Young says it’s what her family wanted and she is very pleased with the conclusion of a land donation that will keep an Oyama wetlands preserved and
■ Home Depot
■ Shoppers Drug Mart ■ Smartsource ■ Staples
available for public use. The Young family, which settled in Oyama in the early 1900s, has donated two parcels of marshland to Ducks Unlimited Canada, ensuring the land—known locally as Marsh Lake— will be maintained for
wildlife in perpetuity. “This is what we wanted, we are very happy about it,” said Young in an interview with the Lake Country Calendar. “We’re very pleased we could do it and proud and we hope everybody can enjoy it.”
Now 96, Joyce has been enjoying the wetlands for as long as she can remember, spending decades watching the goings-on of painted turtles, great blue herons, red-winged and yellow-headed blackbirds, ring-necked pheasants,
and a variety of snakes, frogs and waterfowl that have made their homes in and around the marsh over the years. She recalls watching her sons and their friends using the pond as an outdoor skating rink in the days before the Win-
field Arena existed. “That was wonderful,” she said. “I could watch my own children learning to skate right from my kitchen window. It was nice because we didn’t have a skating rink
SEE WETLANDS A3
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ISSUE #55