Fare Thee Well, Summer

This picture, 'Spider Says Good-bye to Summer' is about endings.

Unlike Spider I'm not saying good-bye but I am saying that I probably won't be as active on my blog as I have been.

The reason is that I have started a new page on face book called 'Francie McGlynn Art'.  It is allowing me to post my pictures and follow other artists from around the world.  Unfortunately I'm simply running our of time.

I'll check in with everyone when I can and I'm not closing down a North End Journal because I've learned these things wax and wane and by next summer I may be back here posting five times a day.

:)

I'm off to Ottawa this week-end for a National Remembrance Day that may be very, very different from anything we've seen before.

Freedom, especially for women, has never seemed so precious.

Till next time,

Francie

Remembering Why

This photo is from one of my father's photo albums. 

It is dated 1942 but was likely given to him after the Canadian Army reached the River Maas in 1944 or 1945 by Nelly Verhoeven, the young woman on the left.

"I was billeted in the house of the girl on the left in Holland.

The girl in the centre is dead now. 

She helped 45 allied airmen escape and the Germans caught her."

*

In 1942 it was the Nazis.

Today there are other people with similar intentions.




We mustn't forget.




***

A Family Remembers

His Attestation Papers tell us he was born February 15, 1897 in New Haven Scotland. He immigrated to Canada as a child with his parents.

He was 18 years old on January 3, 1916 when he signed up with the Canadian Overseas Expeditionary Force.

His name was Alexander McKay.

He was 5'4" with a fair complexion, blue eyes and brown hair. He had a tattoo on his right forearm.

He was the only boy in a family of six kids. 

My grandmother's little brother.

He died during the battle of Arras near Vimy Ridge in 1917.

19 years old.

But his name has never been forgotten.

There has been an Alexander in every generation of my family since then.

Grave Faces III



Merritton, Ontario




This is the face I am most familiar with. He stands worn and weather beaten at the cenotaph in my hometown.

He is unusual because he is not on a pedestal. He stands almost at ground level, signifying to the working class men and women who gather around him on Remembrance Day that he is one of them - a son, father or a brother.

But his gaze is turned away from the people.

And he doesn't speak to the glory of war or to patriotism.

He simply represents the dead.

Port Dalhousie, Ontario

This young man came home.

The zoom lens on the camera has caught a pensive moment that the casual viewer from street level would not see.

As he places a wreath at the cenotaph is he wondering about fate? How it happened that he lived while others died? 

All we know for sure is that soon he will straighten his back and turn his face to the future.

This sculpture is not so much about mourning lives lost as it is about teaching us that life must go on.



Thorold, Ontario



This proud figure stands very high, so high it was almost impossible to get a view of his face.

The war never really ended for him, his work has continued.

He epitomizes the line in the national anthem, "Oh Canada, we stand on guard for thee".



Niagara Falls, Ontario



This soldier is also placed on a very high pedestal.

His helmet is off, he has taken a moment to remember his comrades.

We get the feeling however, that he thinks he will be able to rejoin the battle at any minute.

He does not yet understand that he is one of the fallen.



Welland, Ontario



This astonishing monument looms across Chippawa Park in Welland.

According to the plaque it was the last monument made in Canada commemorating World War 1. It was dedicated in 1939 on the day after World War II broke out.

The Canadian soldier is protecting a female figure from a terrible evil. His fighting stance tells us he will never give up, never retreat.

In 1939 the woman represented Great Britain and other European allies.

Today she represents Afghanistan.

***

Thank you to our veterans and thank you to the men and women who are in uniform serving our country today.

Some of the Greatest Canadians Were Americans

Statue of a Loyalist family at Hamilton City hall, Hamilton Ontario,
Photo from "The Loyalist" website

Canada's first veterans weren't Canadian, they were American.

Eh?

Well, after the French and English armies met in 1759 on the Plains of Abraham and the French were sent packing, the good folks who lived in Protestant New England were tickled pink.

Until the Brits sent them the bill.

Grumblings about things like taxation and representation grew into a full scale revolution. The problem for some of the locals was that the British Army was still a large presence in the colonies and many people who probably didn't care one way or the other about the king, did depend on the army for their livelihood.

But there was no sitting on the fence. New Englanders were forced to choose.

Those who figured the British Army was invincible and chose wrong soon found themselves in very deep doo doo.

'Tory parasites' as they were called were beaten, some were hanged. Their homes were looted and burned. Property and possessions confiscated. Women were not safe.

Fearing for their lives, many Loyalists rode north to the British outpost at Fort Niagara. 

Once there they joined Colonel John Butler.

Butler's Rangers engaged in raids and skirmishes against the Continental Army and gained a fearsome reputation.

Eventually the war ended, but not well for the good guys.

How sad when the Loyalists realized they couldn't go home.

How daunting it must have been when Fort Niagara was handed over to the Americans and the first settlers crossed the Niagara River into the wilderness that was Canada.

But not only did the Loyalists build a country, some of them, like my ancestor Francis Weaver* who fought with Butler's Rangers at age 14, lived long enough to take up arms against their former countrymen again in 1812.

The new 'Canadians' refused to be driven from their homes again.

In 1814 the Americans retreated to their side of the Niagara River where they have stayed ever since.

A veteran from the War of 1812.
Note the silver maple leaf
and Canadian flag. 

We honour the Loyalist veterans this Remembrance Day.

 *Francis Weaver died of injuries sustained during the War of 1812 but many of his descendants still live in this area.