The Why and Wherefore

Nakina's Hillcrest Cemetery, where my part in the story begins.  Hillcrest Cemetery is technically and parochially two separate cemeteries: St. Brigid Catholic Cemetery is to the left, while the Protestant Hillcrest Cemetery proper is to the right.  Identifying as United (Presbetyrian), Leonard is buried to the right, near the large tree just right of the centre of the photograph.

I have a thing for cemeteries.  I have for as long as I can recall.  My affinity for cemeteries is  neither ghoulish nor gothic.  It is, in fact, just the opposite.  I have always felt that cemeteries were wonderful, life-affirming, if sombre, places.  

As a child I was, and still am now, comforted by the idea that everyone gets a small monument, a testament -- literally etched in stone -- that  declares for all who care to read the epitaph that a life has been lived and is here remembered.  My grandmother would often take me walking in the large cemetery in which she herself is now interred.  We spent hours amid the rows of markers: stones that declared that the people whose remains rested nearby were beloved wives and husbands,  brothers and sisters, sons and daughters.  The cemetery seemed vast, limitless, an infinite connection between us and the past.  At the other end of the spectrum, east of my hometown, a lonely cemetery is the only remnant of the pioneer community of Mizpah.  What was intended by its founders to be a new Jerusalem in the wilderness of central Ontario, Canada, is now a patch of hallowed ground whose only hint of its former glory and promise are eight graves, once nearly forgotten and now lovingly tended by local residents and cottagers.  Among the eight are “McGineses, Neilsons, Halls and An Unknown Indian with a Blanket for a shroud….”  Also resting there is Thomas Alvin Hart, a mere three years and five months old when he died on 15 September 1886.  His marker asks that since “We loved them in life -- let us not forget them in death.”

Thomas Alvin Hart's grave at the
Mizpah Cemetery near Huntsville ON

In this spirit, I approached the Royal Canadian Legion in Nakina ON.  Nakina’s W. A. “Bill” Grant Branch 116 of this veterans’ organization, whose beer halls and cenotaphs are centres of community activity across Canada, includes in their number, in addition to a wide assortment of civic-minded citizens of the town, an Afghan War veteran who fought the Taliban in 2004, a French Canadian veteran of the Canadian Guards -- the infantry regiment which was disbanded in 1970 for being, according to its colonel, Strome Galloway, “'too British' in uniform and character to pass muster with the Francophone[s]...” -- and me.  In what must have been a moment of sheer desperation and a textbook example of barrel bottom scraping, I had earlier that year been elected the branch’s Second Vice President and Poppy Committee Chairman, and it was in this capacity that I spoke at the branch’s monthly meeting.

“A guided tour of the cemetery,” I said.  “There are veterans of at least three wars buried in Hillcrest Cemetery, but my students don’t know their stories.  I don’t know their stories, for that matter.  If I take my students to the cemetery, will you share the stories of the veterans there?”

Two members quickly volunteered: Brian, who also serves on the Nakina Heritage Corporation, and Frank, the aforementioned Francophone veteran of the “too British” regiment.  With muted prayers that the unusually warm weather would hold and we would miss the usual November mix of bitterly cold winds, sunless skies and driving snow.  As it happened, our prayers were not answered, but despite the grousing of students and the griping of some of the other teachers, the tour went ahead as planned.  

As is the case with many small towns across Canada, tiny and remote Nakina seems to have offered more than her fair share in the great wars of the 20th century.  Five sons of Nakina -- Alphonse Levesque, Kurt Lovquist, Wally Luxton, Gerald Sorel and S. Ambrose Vasiloff -- are among those Canadians “who,” as it is recalled at Legions throughout the country,  “by sea, by land and in the air, laid down their lives for their Sovereign and Country.”  Well-attended community Remembrance Day services notwithstanding, few residents -- and even fewer of my students -- knew of the service and sacrifice of their fellow Nakinites.  Brian and Frank played their parts marvelously: Frank resplendent in his Legion uniform; Brian a font of compelling and obscure knowledge about our community.  The tour went so smoothly, in fact, that other than a brief reminder to some kindergarten students that a cemetery is not an appropriate place to play tag, there was precious little for me to offer.  I was thrilled, then, when I was able to provide an answer a question that Brian was not.

“Why do some of the gravestones all look the same?” a student asked.

“They’re Commonwealth War Graves Commission stones,” I replied.  “They’re the same pattern of headstone used at British Commonwealth military cemeteries all over the world.  Sometimes, if a veteran or their family can’t afford a permanent stone, the Commission or its partners will provide one for them.”

Leonard's elaborately carved but
quickly deteriorating wooden grave marker.

The tour continued passing, among other markers, a decaying wooden headboard engraved with the name LEONARD.  Alf Leonard, Brian told us, served in the American army during the First World War and moved to Canada later in his life.  After respects were paid, thanks were given to our docents and a rather awkward and decidedly not apropos round of applause ended, we started to walk back to the school.  As I fell in behind the line of students grumbling that the wind was now in their faces, Frank pulled me aside.

“It’s a shame, you know, about Leonard,” he said.  “That board of his looks worse every year.  Who knows how long it will last?  Could that commission do something about that?”

“The War Graves Commission?” I asked.  “I don’t know.  He was an American.  He wasn’t in the Imperial or Commonwealth forces.”

“No,” said Frank, “but he served his country just the same as the others.  And his country was on our side, wasn’t it?  He may not have been a Canadian, but he still deserves to be remembered.”

I promised Frank that I would look into the matter and see what could be done.  I contacted the Last Post Fund, a Canadian charity that works with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and whose mandate, in part, is to ensure that no Canadian or Allied veterans will lie in an unmarked grave in Canada.  They replied that all that was required to start the application to obtain a permanent marker was Leonard’s full name, date of birth and date of death.  Proof of his service would also be required.

The Royal Canadian Legion in Nakina ON,
of which Leonard was and I am a member and
which has lent its full support  to ensuring
Leonard's grave recieves a permanent marker. 

With the full backing of the Legion and of the municipal office, which promptly provided me with a copy of Leonard’s burial permit and date of death, I was hopeful that the entire process would be simple and brief.  The only caveat was that “The Last Post Fund does not have access to service records for those who served with the Allied Forces. Proof of service for Allied Veterans must be provided by the applicant.”  I assumed that Leonard’s proof of service could be found in his Legion membership file.

Therein, I found no official record of service but rather two membership applications: one dated 1965 to join the Legion and one nearly 20 years older to join the its predecessor, the Canadian Legion of the British Empire Service League.  It was then I started to notice the discrepancies.  The 1965 application attested that Leonard enlisted in the US Army on 20 January 1917 and was discharged on 19 June 1919 at the rank of sergeant.  The 1946 application, however, states that Private Leonard enlisted on Christmas Day 1917 and served until his discharge on 24 June 1919.  Even his name was inconsistent: “A. Leonard” in 1946 and “Leonard, Thomas Alfred” in 1965.
“Who was this man?” I wondered.