Woodville monument captures community memories

BY SARA KEDDY

Kings County Register

Christina Bigelow’s son, Tim’s, experience with Canada’s military in Afghanistan was “just a glimpse” of what it must have been like for dozens of Woodville families during the First, Second and Korean wars. “But - I had contact, I had phone calls, the computer....”

November 8 will be the culmination of making connections for those families and today’s Woodville residents.

The community has long wanted a permanent memorial for its veterans. Bigelow, a minister, chaplain for Berwick’s Ortona 69 Legion and regular visitor at the veterans’ unit in Middleton; said “I could do that. “This has been such a rewarding experience for me - I always tell everyone, ‘Don’t mess with my veterans!’ This is a project I could take on and enjoy.”

Since May, Bigelow has been asking questions, tracking leads and compiling a list of the community’s servicemen and women - more than 80. “They were all Woodville kids - they’d grown up here, gone to school and church, they were from farm families....”

She credits Wally and Una Madison, Marjorie Carty, Bud Ewing and Doug Hale for her first leads. “Then we got more names from those contacts - did we remember that so and so’s brother served, too?”

There are Footes, Killams and Parrishs - well-known community names; Bigelow says it was moving to discover many names that had been forgotten. “There were two Beech boys - they were both killed, so they’d never married or had kids and their family is gone. There were a lot when we were tracking them that people didn’t remember at first.”

A servicewoman went down with her ship, there was a Korean War volunteer, nurses and many more that died overseas.

And if they did come back, maybe they never married or had kids, and their community contact faded with the years. “I’m just thinking, when they came back, they were in such a shape they missed all that.”

The community monument will be dedicated in a special service at 2 p.m. November 8, starting outside at the community hall and then moving indoors. Bigelow says she’s invited living veterans, families, friends and representatives from the Legion to come and lay their own poppy, or lay one in honour of a relation or old friend. Doug Hale had taught the Beech boys, and he’s honoured to be laying a poppy for them. “This is a project that’s taken on a life of it’s own, and this is the perfect year: Democracy 250 here in Nova Scotia. We’ve been home, never in harm or bombed; we’re free to complain about issues that bother us, free to worship and we have a charter of rights - all on the backs of the early men and women of this country.”

While she acknowledges a great deal of honour and respect for those who lost their lives, she’s determined living veterans know how much they mean. “When I call them and invite them, they are so thrilled - ‘Me? Really? You want me to come and there’s a monument with my name on it?’ They were over there in trenches, away from home in rats and mud and they did it with no idea they’d ever be thanked and recognized. This is for them.”

Democracy 250 has contributed $5,000 to the monument, and the community club is matching that. The service will include music, a recitation of military volunteers’ names, flags and anthems and the laying of poppies. There will be fellowship and refreshments afterwards. “Everyone I call, they all want to help and come. People in this community have always risen above and gone the extra mile - we have a reputation as a community that cares about each other.”