Changing guard at the South Dundas Chamber of Commerce

Adrian Harewood arrived a little late for his speaking engagement with the Canadian Club of Morrisburg and District on Wednesday, May 16.

However, this was understandable. 

He was still on air when the banquet began, anchoring CBC News Ottawa, before thousands of viewers. 

A renowned journalist, radio host (All in a Day) and respected news commentator, Harewood was the final speaker of the Club’s 2011-2012 series. A large crowd of members and guests was on hand to hear Harewood speak on topic about which he clearly has deep feelings, “Volunteers in the Community.”

Personable, outgoing and a gifted speaker, Harewood quickly won over the audience, with his sense of humour. However, there was a serious point to his address.

Canada, like the rest of the world, has changed, he explained, with traditional communities often lost in the new on-line ‘digital’ societies. This is a world made up of hundreds of “friends” that people have never met, will never meet.

“The digital world is, of course, a great creativity source,” Harwood said, “but one effect of this change is that we are in danger of losing the human touch in our lives. Research has found that more people feel disconnected from society than ever before. People seem to be craving the sense of community life,  of simple conversations,  of recognition. They share a wish that they actually knew their neighbours. Without reminders of what community can be, we may lose parts of our humanity.”

Harewood grew up in Ottawa, a member of a close-knit family where both parents were community activists. They instilled in their son the strong belief that he had a responsibility to people, even to people he would never know. Other people’s lives needed to matter to him. 

“Our home was a place where everyone was welcome. I remember my mother bringing  home a Tunisian woman, a woman struggling to gain an education and to leave behind the desperate circumstances of her old life. She was Tunisian, Arabic, a francophone, a Muslim, and a Canadian. She became part of our lives. She was a member of our community.”

Harewood’s parents emphasized the need to be involved with the people in one’s community, to work for justice and freedom. They always stressed that everyone has a responsibility to the community.

Years later, Harewood was interviewing former United States president Bill Clinton, and asked him what he saw as the biggest problem of the 21st century.

“The problem, Clinton told me, lies in the struggle to overcome the differences that divide us as a global community.”

Volunteering, actively and personally getting involved in the life of a community, is vital, Harewood stressed.

“The act of volunteering is the connective tissue that ties our communities together. Volunteers are the civil engineers who build a healthy community. They weave the webs of solidarity and compassion. We cannot survive without the support of others because we are the products of our communities.”

Harewood illustrated how  the power of volunteering can bring even the most unlikely people together. 

He cited the example, a few months ago, of a drought fund raising concert, arranged by young, educated Somalian activists at the Centre Point Theatre. 

“They asked me to volunteer to work with them. But what utterly surprized me, when I saw the entertainment bill, was the  highly unlikely presence on it of a country and western band made up of middle-aged, conservative, white men.  That’s when I came to understand that those young African men and those middle-aged white men shared in common a profound belief in a cause: they were determined to help their community.”

Volunteering, Harewood said, is a gift to our neighbours, and a gift to ourselves.  Volunteers often get back far more than they give in terms of new possibilities,  of new ways of looking at the world.

Caring about the community, and doing what one can to help and to work with neighbours, makes all of us “more ‘human,’ human beings.”

Adrian Harewood chose words from the reverend Martin Luther King to conclude his address.

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

[…]

Early this year, Ken Rundle, Morrisburg Giant Tiger owner invited the Morrisburg & District Lions Club to partner with him during the May 18th grand re-opening of his newly renovated store to provide visitors with a barbecue option to their shopping experience. With Giant Tiger providing the hot dogs, hot dog buns, assorted pop, snacks and all the associated condiments, every cent of the proceeds was donated to the Morrisburg & District Lions Club.  In addition, the Lions Club arranged to have local teens Catharine Prevost and Elese St Louis demonstrate their face painting talent for children attending the event.   In accepting the $750 donation from the grand re-opening,  Lions president Bob Bechard, right, expressed his gratitude to Ken and Giant Tiger for the contribution which enables the Club to actively pursue the Lion’s motto of “We Serve”.

[…]

There is a plaque from old St. John the Baptist Anglican Church fastened to the wall of the modern St. John’s in Iroquois. It is carved in heavy marble, with the phrase, Pro Deo, Pro Rege, Pro Patria, 1914-1918, carefully inscribed at the top. After nearly 100 years, most people rarely take note of the six names and dates that are etched below. 

Brock Wells was barely 21. His mother, Clara, had a small farm outside Iroquois. When the call came, Brock signed up to fight on May 7, 1915. Frank Wert was also 21. He’d worked as assistant veterinarian in Iroquois: he’d also had a little military training helping on transports with the horses and mules. His sister, Mrs. Alfred Keeler, was listed as his next of kin. He signed up September 10, 1915. Allen Fisher, the name everyone in the village knew this young man by, although his real name was Charles Allen Fisher, was a 21 year old telephone operator. He’d actually received a little military training, having served for 10 months on local Canal Patrol. He enlisted January 4, 1916, naming his parents on his attestation papers. 

The oldest of the six, Frank Osborne, in his mid twenties, worked as a cheese maker in Iroquois. His dad, Albert Osborne, was listed on his enlistment papers, when Frank signed up to fight in the Great War, January 5, 1915. David Allan Robertson, known as Allan to his friends, was 22 years old, and a clerk in an Iroquois store. He came to the recruiters February 5, 1917. William E. Thwaite was 22, not a local boy exactly. He was actually from Newcastle-on-Tyne, England, and just happened to be working in the local dry goods store in the village when the War began. He’d enlisted with the 59th Militia Regiment in Iroquois after he came to town, because he’d had militia training in the old country. When he signed up on March 7, 1916, authorities made him an officer. At various times, all six boys were members of Iroquois Platoon.

The Platoon often used to drill at the fair grounds in South Mountain: people recalled watching them training in a few open areas around Iroquois. As raw recruits, the six from St. John’s parish learned about the Ross Rifle, even heard a little bit about the great trenches – and not enough about mustard gas, barbed wire, flame throwers, hand grenades, land mines, tanks and sky bombers. 

With their buddies, the six St. John’s boys probably sang the popular songs of the day: Mademoiselle from Armentieres, Pack up Your Troubles, Tipperary. They went to farewell dances. They took last walks by the river. They dreamed of the years “after the war.”  

If Hell does exist, it must look a lot like the bloody, reeking, soul destroying trenches of World War One. 

Private William Brock Wells died of terrible wounds January 11, 1916, at Ypres Salient. That was on a day that Major General Currie praised his brigade, but wrote in the War Diary, “While I deeply regret their casualties, I do not think they were excessive.” Brock lies in plot 1A7 in the Dranoutre Military Cemetery.

Private William Franklyn Wert was grievously wounded at the battle of Thiepval. He lived long enough to be delivered to the General Hospital at Wimereux, near the coast of France, but it was far too late. He was laid to rest, September 27, 1916, at Wimereux Communal Cemetery. He lies at stone marker IQ 22A. 

Lance Corporal Franklin George Osborne died November 18, 1916, at the horrific Battle of the Somme, where 1,000,000 men were wounded or killed. On that plain of death, his body was never recovered. Instead, his name is inscribed on the Menin Gate at the Vimy Memorial.

Sergeant Charles Allen Fisher was killed by a sniper’s bullet on May 3, 1917, somewhere near Vimy Ridge. Patrols couldn’t recover his body in subsequent shelling. There is a single photo of him, in uniform, on a wall at the Iroquois Legion. His name is also carved on the Menin Gate on the Memorial.

Captain William E. Thwaite was killed at the battle of Amiens on August 10, 1918, while leading his men through the gunfire and bombs.  He is buried in the Fouquescourt British Cemetery. A small rose bush blooms every year over his resting place, plot 111E.I.

Private David Allan Robertson was killed on October 12, 1918, at Valenciennes. Possibly he got to see his 23rd birthday. His body was never found. His name appears at Vimy, carved into the Tyne Cot Cemetery. Less than four weeks after Allan Robertson died, on November 11, 1918, the German forces surrendered unconditionally. The Great War was over. 

But Brock Wells, Frank Wert, Allan Robertson, Will Thwaite, Frank Osborne and Allen Fisher, of St. John’s Anglican parish, Iroquois, didn’t come home: For God, for King, for Country.  

[…]