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A visit to a Soldier - Dalcy Gripich
visits the grave site of her relative, Sgt William Robertson. She writes
"Through the years I have been dragging the family to War Memorials and
grave yards so they all know the man in the uniform in some small way. I
have been to Ottawa and have the page from the Book of Remembrance, the War
Memorial at Edinburgh Castle where we had his name added to the books,
Cranbrook Cenotaph and Cranbrook's Wall of Honour and finally to
Belgium...awesome experience! I have a postcard collection from my
grandmother with the few cards he sent to her during his journey across
Canada." Dalcy has shared a few pictures of her visit at the Reninghelst New
Military Cemetery near Poperinge in Belgium. Click each picture to see views
of the site.
Billy Robertson`s loss
Sgt Robertson had 3 other brothers who died in France George 25 September 1915 Aged 26 William 8 September 1916 Aged 29 Andrew February 1918 Aged 32 His brother Robert died at East Fortune 20th May 1925, Aged 24
Dalcy also contributed the news items below |
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Cranbrook`s Contributions via The Cranbrook Herald Archives Each link will open up a news clipping |
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NEW! The Camps used by the 54th Bn in the Ypres Area CLICK EACH SLIDE TO ADVANCE THE SHOW - Enjoy!
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THE STORY OF EDWARD GREENWOOD CHRISTENSEN Killed in Action, WWI, 1917 By Susan K. Dahlo
British Columbia had experienced a huge boom of immigration from the 1890's onward. The government of Canada had gone out into the world to sell Canada with the slogan "Free Homes for Millions" and many people had moved in. The population of BC at the census of 1901 was 190,000 and by 1914 the population stood at 435,000. The Christensen family had immigrated to the United States from Denmark in the 1880's; and on hearing of the great mining activity in the Boundary area, moved their family up into Canada in 1895. Edward Greenwood Christensen was born in Greenwood on April 8, 1896, the first child born to the first family in the town. The Christensens had totally adopted their new country. They spoke English always and kept no old world customs. They wanted to ensure that their children had all the benefits possible in a land of English speaking Canadians. Edward went to school in the little one-room school house in Boundary Falls where his family moved so that his father Mark could work in the newly built Boundary Falls smelter. In 1903, Mark was a trustee of this little school with 10 pupils. Eddy grew up in a large family of 9 children and like all pioneer children had to be tough, daring and self-reliant to survive. These attributes were later absolutely necessary to survive the horrible conditions in the mud and mire of France! Eddy, like the boys of his generation, had a British education. The history of Britain was the stuff of the textbooks used in Canadian schools and the British culture was dominant. So that when the British Empire was threatened, a strong patriotism came out in the Canadian people. When Robert Borden spoke in the House "We stand shoulder to shoulder with the British Dominions in this quarrel" everyone murmured approval. When Eddy signed up on May 30, 1916 in Phoenix, he felt this patriotism for his country but also the sense of duty (I will do by best to do my duty to God, the King and my Country) and adventure. By 1916, the stories and photos coming back from the front showed some terrible things. Who can explain why these men continued to sign up in droves? Certainly from our perspective today, we cannot understand how these men could volunteer to be "cannon fodder" on the foreign soil of Europe! On his attestation papers, it states that Eddy was 5' 9" and had a chest measurement of 35 inches with a range of expansion of 3 inches. This is very scrawny by today's standards but for those days, it was quite tall and wiry. Initially, Eddy and the other new recruits from the Boundary area took their basic training in Grand Forks. The training grounds were at the fair grounds along the river just south of the city. Then on Saturday, July 8, 1916, they boarded a special 13 car train along with 700 officers (including Col. J. MacKay, the Commander) and men from the Kootenays for a trip up to the army camp in Vernon for further training. (From Fernie were 312 men, from Cranbrook 122, from Nelson 178 and from Grand Forks 55.) To give them a send off, hundreds of local citizens waited for the train departure from midnight to almost 4 in the morning. They detrained at the wharf in Penticton where again throngs of people turned out to send off their "khaki clad" boys. In fact, as reported in the Penticton Herald, "It seemed as if the entire population of the town had turned out to see the soldiers". They immediately boarded the sternwheeler S. S. Sicamous for passage up Okanagan Lake. At Vernon, they joined other volunteers, so that when the Duke of Connaught visited the camp later that summer, he reviewed 4000 troops. In the fall of 1916, the Battalion was moved to New Westminster in final preparation for the overseas journey. They entrained there and travelled for 5 days across the great expanse of Canada in the cold January of 1917. If things were the same for the 225th (two two-bits) as for the 54th Battalion who had made the trip in November of 1915, every day they were given a march. Embarkation for England took place on January 26th, 1917 from Halifax on the ship S.S. Grampian. They arrived at Plymouth, England on February 6th, 1917, and immediately entrained and arrived at the camp, Seaford, Sussex on the 7th. Canada had planned to send over a 5th and 6th Division to her army in France but because of the devastating slaughter at the Somme, the 225th Battalion and all the other Battalions were to be absorbed into the ranks of the existing 4 Divisions. Eddy was forthwith assigned to the 16th Reserve Battalion. Strenuous training was the order of the day. On April 9th, the 54th Kootenay Battalion which Eddy was to later become a member of, participated in the Battle of Vimy Ridge. The Battalion was part of the 4th Canadian Division, the Division that was to assault the highest point of the Vimy Ridge, which was, for this reason, the most strongly fortified and formidable part of the entire position. They suffered significant casualties but proved their worth and courage in battle. In fact, the Canadians really proved themselves in the battle, it was the first of the great assaults of 1917 in which the Canadians took part and it was the first exclusively Canadian victory. The Canadian achievement in capturing Vimy Ridge owed its success to sound planning and thorough preparation, but above all to the splendid fighting qualities and devotion to duty displayed by officers and men on the battlefield. Historians agree that this victory in battle marked a decisive turning point in Canada's long march to nationhood. The Imperial ties were forever loosened. Canada entered the War as a junior partner of Great Britain and emerged as an equal--given her own vote at the League of Nations. On the 3rd of May in 1917, Eddy was proud to be posted to the 54th Battalion, he entrained bound for Southampton and embarked to Le Havre on the 4th, left for his unit on the 7th and joined the unit in the Field on the 21st of May. This was the day on which Lieut.-Col. A.B Carey, D.S.O. reported to the Battalion to take over command. Training was again commenced and carried on daily. Sports were also freely indulged in, and on the 27th of May, brigade sports were held in which the 54th easily carried off the honours, both in football and track events. The Canadians continued operations in the Arras area. The 54th alternated between holding the front line and being relieved and moving back to the Chateau de la Haie. Towards the end of June, the Corps Commander, Lieut.-General Sir Arthur Currie paid the 11th Brigade a visit and inspected the 54th Battalion in training. On the 11th of July, His Majesty, King George V drove through the area and an opportunity was given for all ranks to see him. At the end of July, the 54th moved into the Vimy salient near the town of Lievin in preparation for the taking of the town of Lens. Eddy and his Battalion were exposed here to German gas, 5.9 shells and flying bricks. On the fateful day of the 13th of August, Eddy was killed in an explosion. His body was never found. The most feared and dreaded telegram edged in black reached his parents in Boundary Falls. The family went into deep mourning for their son and brother who had just turned 21. His memory still burns bright in the Christensen family and he will be forever young. As with all the War dead, we wonder what would be now if these young men had lived, and still we cannot make sense of it! Eddy's name is among the 11,285 names of Canada's soldiers on the Vimy Memorial in France. These are the names of those known to be dead, but whose graves cannot be found. His name is among the 31 names on the cenotaph at Ingram Bridge, erected in 1924. These were men from the Greenwood District who gave their lives for King and Country. His name is also in the First World War Book of Remembrance in the Peace Tower in Ottawa. Eddy was one of the 6,224 men from British Columbia who were killed overseas in this War. The Christensen family applied to the Ministry of the Environment, Lands and Parks of B.C. to have a Geographical feature in Southern B.C. named for our beloved uncle, Edward Greenwood Christensen. On Remembrance Day, November 11, 1998, The Province of BC and the Canadian Permanent Committee on Geographical Names, named Christensen Creek, 13 km north of Greenwood in remembrance of Eddy. Lest we forget. |
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Eddy
Christensen's story is the unique story of an ordinary young man from a
typical family in a Western Canadian town--Greenwood during the First World
War. His story is representative of thousands of stories of the 43,000
British Columbia men who served overseas in the Great War. In fact, one-half
of the Canadian infantry in the First World War came from west of Ontario,
an area that contained only one-quarter the population of Canada!References:
1 Canadians at War, Jim Lotz
2 Vimy, Pierre Berton
3 Canada's Soldiers The Military History of an Unmilitary People, George F.G.Stanley
4 The Life and Times of Grand Forks, Jim and Alice Glanville
5 The Kettle Valley Irrigated Fruit Lands Ltd. 1907-1928, Ted Gane
6 Cinquante-Quatre Being a Short History of the 54th Canadian Infantry Battalion by One of Them
7 The Vimy Memorial, Souvenir booklet produced by the Directorate of Public Affairs, Veterans Affairs Canada
8 Penticton Herald, July 13, 1916
9 Grand Forks Gazette, July 15, 1916
10 Attestation Papers and Service Record of Edward Greenwood Christensen, Private Regiment # 931618, Medals and Decorations: British War Medal, Victory Medal. Memorial Cross GRV awarded to his mother Anna Katrine in 1919.
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World War I Medal is returned after being lost over 60 years agoOn Monday July 28th, Margaret Eek of Rock Creek received a very pleasant surprise phone call. Neil Thomas was calling from Lake Cowichan on Vancouver Island to tell her that he had a Memorial War Medal from WWI to return to the rightful owners - the Christensen family. It turned out that the medal in the form of a cross was presented to Margaret’s grandmother, Anna Christensen in 1919 in memory of her son, Edward Greenwood Christensen who had been killed in action August 13, 1917 at the age of 21. Edward who was born in Greenwood, had served with the Kootenay 54th Battalion and was in the Vimy Salient in France when he was killed. His name is on the Vimy Ridge Memorial, the Ingram Bridge Cenotaph in Kettle Valley and in the First World War Book of Remembrance in the Peace Tower in Ottawa.
Scott Thomas from Youbou near Lake Cowichan and Neil Thomas from Edmonton presented Margaret Eek of Rock Creek with the Memorial Silver Cross GRV that was issued "as a memento of personal loss and sacrifice on the part of widows and mothers of Canadian sailors & soldiers who laid down their lives for their country during WWI."
Neil Thomas from Edmonton is a medal collector and was visiting his brother Scott in Lake Cowichan when Scott found and bought the medal for Neil in a local pawn shop. They went on-line with Edward’s name and number imprinted on the back of the medal and found the 54th Battalion’s site, read the story of Edward Christensen on that site, and then phoned the Greenwood Museum to get further information. The museum personnel told Neil that the closest next of kin was Margaret (nee Christensen) Eek. Then Neil phoned Margaret to inform her of his find. As soon as he had talked to her, they were on their way to catch a ferry to the mainland and travel up to Rock Creek to present the medal to the family. At 10 am on Tuesday morning, they were at Margaret’s door in Rock Creek and presented her with the long missing medal. She was overwhelmed by their act of generosity and kindness! This 82 year old great-grandmother could remember that as a child her grandmother would take the medal out of her trunk, have a cry and explain about her son who had made the supreme sacrifice in WWI. That trunk with the medal in it was lost in the 1940’s when Anna was ill near the end of her life. She died in 1947 in New Westminster. Since then it has been lost, forgotten and assumed that it would never be seen again by the family.
Now as a result of the heroic efforts of the Thomas brothers, that medal will join Edward’s other medals in the Greenwood Museum. The family cannot believe that this sterling silver medal has survived intact for over 60 years out there somewhere. Even more amazing is the generosity of the two young brothers, Neil and Scott Thomas who bought the medal back to the family, tracking them down and making this long trip to return it. The family members owe a great debt of gratitude and thanks to these two fine young men and their selfless thoughtfulness in reuniting this medal with the family which will now join the others on the Edward Greenwood Christensen display at the Greenwood Museum.
Richard
Arthur Henderson was a Civil engineer and Surveyor. He was 9 months old when he
came from Kansas in a covered wagon to the Fraser Valley. He went to high school
in Vancouver and later went to Montreal, where he graduated from McGill. He put
himself through school by selling magazines, washing dishes, etc. After
graduation he was involved in the Kettle Valley RR, the Grand Trunk RR, the town
of Grand Forks and the town of Chilliwack, B.C. He was a physically large man.
He and his father were strong Mason's and Oddfellows. He apparently was very
committed to his family in that he financially supported his younger brothers
and sisters.
