www.ngtimes.ca
Vol. 2, No. 44
The Voice of North Grenville
November 5, 2014
Remembering across a century
The North Grenville Times is Locally Owned and Operated
Special Remembrance Day pages
Kemptville Company, 156th Battalion mustering at the Armoury in Kemptville by David Shanahan Remembrance is the constant theme of each November, and each year seems to bring with it more sadness and more names to remember. People from what is now North Grenville have been part of every conflict in which their country has been involved since at least the War of 1812. Residents of this community marched down to Prescott in 1837 to repel a threatened invasion by Fenians. There was even a man from Kemptville in the first Canadian overseas detachment which went to South Africa to fight the
Boers. Sergeant Thomas Griffin arrived safely back home in 1901 to be welcomed in a blinding snowstorm by hundreds of his neighbours and Reeve G. Howard Ferguson. This year marks so many anniversaries, so many events and names to remember: the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Lundy’s Lane; the 75th anniversary of the start of the Second World War; the 70th anniversary of D-Day; the 70th anniversary of the Liberation of Belgium. But this November we take time to notice in particular the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the First
World War. This was the conflict that brought local men and women into a world conflict for the first time, not just overseas, but here at home too. Mothers and fathers dealt with the loss of thirty-seven sons, and the wounding of many more. Physical and psychological scars are the inevitable and universal result of war, and Oxfordon-Rideau, South Gower and Kemptville suffered from the loss of so much potential, so much talent and humanity. The focus of our coverage of this Remembrance season is on the First World War in those first
few weeks of the war in 1914. From the promise of adventure to the grim statistics of 1918-1919, North Grenville went through four years of transformation and disillusion. The struggle nearly tore Canada apart, and revealed rifts and prejudices that had remained largely hidden before. But it also brought a new sense of identity and local pride. It is our responsibility to remember and honour those who did what they saw as their duty; and to honour them most by striving to avoid a repetition of their suffering and sacrifice in the future. That is our duty to them.