This is a monument at the Veterans Memorial Garden in St. Thomas. This statue used to be outside of the hospital in St. Thomas to remember those who had fought in the First World War. It had been moved to this cite to complete the garden which officially opened on October 28, 2017.
Walking up to the Veterans Memorial Garden, you cannot help but feel a sense of awe- having your breath taken away- being apart of something bigger than yourself. It is a place that brings about such a mixture of emotions- pride, loss, freedom, and sorrow. It is a place that makes us remember.
Looking around there are maple leaves pressed into the pavement throughout the garden, the monument of the soldier that used to outside of the St. Thomas Elgin General Hospital to remember those who died in the First World War, a cenotaph remembering those who fought in the Korean War and Afghanistan, and a monument that acknowledges the individuals who fought in the war of 1812. With words on the monuments and cenotaphs like “lest we forget,” “to honour those who served,” and “they gave their tomorrow for our today” one can feel the importance and dedication to our veterans.
Remembrance Day is about honouring and remembering those who fought in the First World War for our freedom and as such we have a ceremony every year. However, with the pandemic, it will look different this year but for St. Thomas they will always have the Veterans Memorial Garden as a place that they can go to anytime to remember their veterans.
Herb Warren is an 81-year-old resident of St. Thomas, Chairman of the Veterans Memorial Garden, and a retired Lieutenant Colonel for the Canadian Army. To him, the garden represents a place that all the people of St. Thomas can go to, especially on Remembrance Day, to pay their respect and remember those who have fought and “served to keep our country free.”
Warren said the Memorial Garden is unique in that it has brought together the cenotaphs and memorials all in one spot of the city. St. Thomas is “one of the few places in Canada that has moved previous cenotaphs or monuments so that they are all in one spot which I think makes it a little bit unique and it’s also very nice for the citizens,” said Warren.
For St. Thomas, before the creation of the Veterans Memorial Garden in 2017, there was always an issue of where the community would go to honour their veterans and those who served because they had the one monument at the St. Thomas Elgin General Hospital, and another monument on Talbot Street. But now with the garden, everything is all in one spot which is in downtown St. Thomas on Moore Street.
Warrens said that since the garden opened it has “really increased the number of people that come there to observe Remembrance Day.”
The Memorial Garden took some work as they had to move some the two monuments to the new location and invest in a few new monuments and cenotaphs. All and all they had to raise 300 thousand dollars to build the Memorial Garden. They applied to the government, the city, got money from veteran’s affairs, and the rest they raised locally.
Warren said that for him “it was an honour for me to serve the 23 years I did, and it was an honour for me to be involved in establishing the Veterans Memorial Garden.”
So even though this year will be different, the citizens of St. Thomas can go to the Memorial Garden at any time to remember their loved ones, those who served, those who didn’t make it back, and those who fought to keep our country free.
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