The news from Pope Memorial
Bury students remember
The students and staff at Pope Memorial have a long-standing history with the Bury Legion Br. 48. In fact, it was the students who once walked nearby school halls, and who were later called upon to defend their country, who returned home from the war to form the Bury Legion Branch 48. Although the founding members have all now passed away, their descendants have kept the memories of what they did for us alive.
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The young students who attend Pope Memorial today, so many years later, can tell you about many of those young men and women who served. Through collaboration with the Bury Legion Branch 48, students have visited the graves of 109 veterans in four local cemeteries. At the graveside, students read the gravestones, to see how old the veteran was, and to see if he made it back from war, or died during the war. The veterans’ graves in these cemeteries have all been supplied with a white cross by the Bury Legion. The students respectfully place the Canadian flag atop the cross.
The idea for this remembrance came from a Legion member (Erwin Watson), when his visiting cousin asked why we don’t honour our soldiers’ graves in the manner that they do where he came from, in the U.S.A. Upon discussing it with the Legion members in Bury, it was decided that Branch 48 would make the crosses, order the flags, and ask the school children to place the flags. This has been happening for about 10 years now. Each June, the children solemnly walk to the graves, and pay respect to those buried there. Some have relatives, some not, but all learn about the history of these tragic time periods, when young men and women left this little town to go off to WW1, WW2, or the Korean War.
This year and last, Bury Branch 48 has paid for the bus, to take the Cycle 3 students to the Murphy Gordon Museum of the Army Navy Air Force in Lennoxville. There, the students were given a guided tour by Tim Belford.
For many years before that, the veterans who lived nearby, visited our school each November. What their message to the children always was, is that war is a horrible thing to go through, and that they hoped to never have to see people go through it again. As Tim Belford stated, “The whole purpose of the museum is to remember, remember the young men and women that died. It’s not in any way, shape, or form, a glorification of war. Nobody in their right mind wants war. None of the soldiers, I’ve never heard anyone, say it was a fun time. This is to remember the sacrifices that young men and women gave, giving up their life for four or five years!” We believe that this is an important message for young people, especially with the glorification of violence, which exists in their world, on tv, in video games, and on various internet sites.
The pictures shown here represent the past and present. Some of the pictures show the veterans and students together at the school from years gone by; some show the graveside visits; and some are of the museum visit. In all of them, I think you can see the respect and gratitude that these school children have developed for the generations of brave men and women who came before them!
Pope Memorial wishes to thank our partners, the members of the Bury Legion Branch 48, for all their help with the task of educating our young children about this important, and also very tragic, time in our history.
One added picture is the sandbox which the Legion funded, and Joey built. Many trucks and excavators ‘vroom’ through the sand every day, driven by little hands and imaginative minds!