What researching my grandfather's WW I history revealed about his life at war

Remembrance Day brings back a flood of childhood memories formed through the years: ceremonies outside with proud veterans and medals shining, wearing a beret no matter what the weather, school assemblies, John McCrae's In Flanders Fields, stories of First World War aces, D-Day, Dieppe and the battles of Vimy Ridge and Passchendaele.

My older brother and I would play with toy soldiers, create a battlefield diorama, build military planes and tanks, and pretend we were in a battle.

Then, as a young adult, I had heard my mother mention her father was in the First World War, and she had heard "someone had been killed" beside him.

There had also been a trunk with his uniforms, perhaps some memorabilia, and a captured German gun. Unfortunately, those were lost in the early '60s, after my grandfather, William John Alexander Stewart, passed away in 1956. The items no longer had any meaning and were discarded.

However, with my grandmother's passing in 1988, some family keepsakes were handed down: war medals, a photo album of the 63rd Halifax Rifles guarding Halifax Harbour in 1914, pictures of my grandfather as a lieutenant in uniform, military friends, officers, and his machine gun crew.

Curiosity about the medals, locations, and the unit started my interest in finding out about his experiences in the First World War.

'All of a sudden, everything was there'

Not a lot of online resources were available in the 1990s and the Millennium Library in Winnipeg was the place for research. Marway Militaria — a military antiques and surplus store — was also a great place to ask questions and periodically see what was for sale in the store, or at auction.

I had requested my grandfather's attestation papers (a personal information form that volunteers filled out during the enlistment process) and the war diaries of his unit, the 12th Canadian Machine Gun Company, on microfilm from the library (no internet!).

I sat there, immersed in 1917, as the war diaries told the story of the unit, day by day, and the military details of the battles.- Steven Stothers

The package arrived about two weeks later from Ottawa. All of a sudden, everything was there — when he joined the Canadian Expeditionary Force, what ship he sailed to England on, and details about training, promotions, locations.

I had to anxiously wait a few days to get to the microfilm machines at the library on the weekend for viewing. I sat there, immersed in 1917, as the war diaries told the story of the unit, day by day, and the military details of the battles.

Grandfather Stewart's unit was sent to Passchendaele, starting on Oct. 13, 1917, with an 17-mile march to Hondeghem in northern France.

There is a note in the war diaries that during the march it was "raining at times," and two days later there were "many men footsore owing to bad conditions during the march." One can only imagine the marching conditions in wool clothing, carrying military gear, and trudging through the mud.

On Oct. 24, the unit was on the move up to the front lines in "heavy rain and terrific gales of wind during the night" to get ready for the upcoming offensive.

A family mystery solved

Then a family mystery and tragedy — the belief "someone had been killed" beside my grandfather — was solved, written in the war diaries for Oct. 25: "Lieut. A.H. Rutledge was killed in action and 1 OR [other rank] wounded."

Lt. Rutledge was my grandfather's close friend from Halifax. Comments in the war diaries indicate grandfather was "badly shaken up" but insisted on continuing with the battle, and was later sent to the rear lines to rest. Of course, this was shell shock — now known as PTSD.

He survived the war without a physical scratch, married a Scottish woman in 1925 who he met on leave in 1917, and returned home to a rewarding career in teaching after the war.

Then another connection to the past was found at home — First World War letters from my great-uncle John Cannon Stothers to his brother (my paternal grandfather) and family.

Fortunately these letters had been preserved and copied over the years, and the majority had resided with my Ontario cousins.

A glimpse into life in the trenches

John Cannon had joined the CEF with his younger brother, Carman, in 1916, and as a schoolteacher, his writings and words offer a different perspective of a soldier's war.

From a letter after a tour in the front trenches in February 1918:

"No two trips are exactly alike. You are continually learning something by being confronted by new situations, new difficulties, and new tight corners, not that I have seen anything exceptionally strange or wonderful. I could dismiss it all with a wave of the hand and a few words, now that it is over.

"I might say that walking into a barrage of enemy artillery fire on our way to a working party near the front line had an effect not exactly exhilarating, but rather electrifying, for the speed with which we covered the duck boards in that trench was about as exciting as the Farmer's Trot at Dungannon Fair.

"Speaking personally, I never was so glad in my life as when the corporal in front was suddenly gifted with a glimmer of intelligence and dived into a deep sap. We weren't long in reaching the bottom of it, where we could listen to the burst of the shells in comparative safety. So much for that, and it has suffered in the telling."

Also saved by family was his complete 48th Highlanders uniform, which he wore as he walked off the ship to return home to Canada in May of 1919.

More than just ceremonies

The significance of Nov. 11 means more than just ceremonies now.

In August 2014, I visited Vimy Ridge in France. It is truly an incredible and thought-provoking Canadian war monument you have to experience in person, and I reflected on my grandfather's and uncle's words and actions, which I had discovered over the years.

For this 100th commemoration of the end of the First World War on Sunday, I'll let my uncle, John Cannon, close from one of his November 1916 letters:

"The boys often sing and the arguments about the respective merits of Canada and England used to be the order of the day. But since coming back from leave everybody is satisfied that Canada is the only place in the world."

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