16 • The Columbia Valley Pioneer
November 5, 2010
REMEMBRANCE DAY 2010
Wilmer’s Hume brothers fought side-by-side By Dorothy Isted Special to The Pioneer On Invermere’s cenotaph we see the names of nine valley men who died in the Second World War and eighteen in the First World War. This is the story of one of those eighteen, Frank Hume, and of his brother Jack, who survived. Frank and Jack fought together in the First World War when Canada, being part of the British Empire, was automatically included in the British declaration of the war against Germany. Jack, the youngest of four children, was about 15 years younger than his brother Frank, who was born in Galt, Ontario in 1883. Their parents Alexander and Dora Hume came first from Galt to the Calgary area, where Jack was born in 1898, then to the Columbia Valley to work for Harold Forster on his 6000 acre Firlands Ranch, north of Wilmer. Frank went to Glasgow, Scotland and graduated with an engineering degree in 1904. After returning to Canada, he married the schoolteacher Ada Winnifred Griffiths in Wilmer, and they had a son, Gavin, born in 1909. Frank worked as an engineer in both Alberta and B.C., and the Windermere Valley Museum has two mining claims signed by Frank, both in 1915. One he called Prairie Chicken and the other, Winifred. He also helped build the hydroelectric dam at Stewart,
B.C., near the Alaskan border. The elder Humes moved to Lacombe around 1912, and Jack attended Nelson School there from 1905 to 1915. He joined the staff of the Union Bank in 1915 and enlisted in the Canadian Army in 1916. In February 1916, Frank enlisted and trained in Victoria and Vernon, B.C. When he arrived in England, he transferred to the 47th Canadian Infantry Battalion. In order to get to the front, Frank took a demotion. He arrived in France in March 1917, and was later promoted again to Sergeant. In a letter to Jack, dated August 31st, 1917, Frank described the best way to be transferred to the same battalion, presumably so the brothers could be together. “I took up the matter of getting you transferred .” it said. “I was told to advise you to apply for a transfer to the 24th Canadian Training Reserve Battalion, Stratford. They reinforce us and that way would be much simpler.” Their efforts were successful and at Passchendaele, when Frank was hit by a sniper’s bullet as he was directing the evacuation of a trench, Jack was there. Jack was euphoric he had saved his brother’s life and wrote home to his family telling them Frank was injured but just fine. He didn’t know that Frank later died from his wound on October 31, 1917. He is buried at Nine Elms British Cemetery in Poperinghe, Belgium. Jack was gassed after Frank was shot and sent to
BOND OF BROTHERS — Jack Hume (above) and his older brother Frank (pictured on the front cover) relied on each other for support as they fought together in the First World War. Photo submitted Liverpool, England to recover. It was likely mustard gas, from which sufferers often had to be strapped down due to the pain. In Jack’s words, “Gas on the night of the [illegible] and I ran into some of it. Was quite sick for a while. Vomited and coughed to beat the band.
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