BIRTHDAY BOYS

William James Wight was born on April 9, 1892. It is an unremarkable birthdate accept for a remarkably tragic coincidence of history: On April 9th, 1917, on what would have been his 25th birthday, Wight, a carpenter by trade, was killed at Vimy. His younger brother, Samuel, was killed the week before. Army recruiters initially turned Wight away at the enlistment office near his home in Renfrew, Ont. — for being too short. (He only stood 5-foot-2). Undeterred, he tried to enlist again, elsewhere, and got in and then died — about a year after being sent overseas. Wight wasn’t the only Canadian at Vimy to die on his birthday. James Dell, 20; Ernest Hall, 21; George McMurray, 22; Thomas Rooney, 26; Harry Westra, 27 and Evaren Wright, 21, all likewise fell at Vimy on their birthdays. In another place, and another time, the dead men would have had a party.