Wedgeport legion getting ready for Remembrance Day
With Nov. 11 approaching, Royal Canadian Legion branch 155 in Wedgeport is preparing for its annual Remembrance Day activities.
There will be a special focus this year on the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War.
Remembrance Day itself – Sunday, Nov. 11 – will include a mass at Saint Michael’s Church, followed by a remembrance ceremony and then a banquet at the branch 155 legion hall, where George Egan will be the guest speaker. Egan is a retired school teacher known to many for the extensive work he has done chronicling and preserving the area’s military history.
Clinton Saulnier, president of the Wedgeport legion, invites people to join the branch as it marks a century since the end of the First World War.
“We ask the public to join us and honour those who made the ultimate sacrifice and those who served in this war,” Saulnier said. “We will especially remember those from our area who gave their lives or who served either in Canada or survived the battlefields of Europe. We will remember them all.”
Egan, chairman/director of the Wartime Heritage Association, will speak at the banquet about the First World War in general, Canada’s participation in it and the participation of people from the area served by the Wedgeport legion.
For example, Egan will share information about Wedgeport native Albert Agapit Pothier and his sons Luc, Charles and Cyrille, all of whom served in the First World War. They were members of the Acadian 165th Battalion and all survived. (Albert Agapit Pothier served as local MLA from 1894 to 1897. He was 51 when he enlisted for the war, telling authorities he was 45.)
Aside from the activities that will take place Nov. 11, Wedgeport legion members will take part in a number of memorial services at schools and elsewhere in the week leading up to Remembrance Day.
Also during this time period, the nearly 400 veterans buried in 15 cemeteries in the legion branch 155 catchment area will be remembered, with small Canadian flags placed on their gravestones.
Meanwhile, Remembrance Day and the days leading up to it will be a chance for people to view a new showcase featuring military items, pictures and the list of all those from the branch 155 area who gave their lives during the First World War. The showcase can be viewed at the Wedgeport legion hall on Corporon Road Tuesday to Friday, from 4 to 7 p.m. during the week before Remembrance Day.