Out of the shadows
Refurbished memorial honours First World War vets
A memorial for Windsor’s First World War veterans that had been hidden in the shadows and sprayed with graffiti has been moved in front of the gates of Memorial Park.
“This here was so obscure people wouldn’t even know it was here,” 89-year-old Second World War veteran Larry Costello said Tuesday.
Now the granite memorial with the names of 837 men and women from the Windsor area who died serving in the First World War is prominently displayed off Ypres Avenue at the end of Hall Avenue. The public is invited to join veterans and dignitaries Friday at 10:30 a.m. for the Memorial Park rededication ceremony.
“It’s an honour for the First World War veterans,” Costello said. “It should be somewhere where someone can see it. It was too obscure in the background.”
The timing is right, he said. This summer will mark the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the First World War.
“It sort of gives me a nice feeling inside to know that Windsor is so willing to honour those who gave up their freedom,” said Costello, a well- known local veteran who originally came from Montréal and served in the navy.
Memorial Park dates back to 1925. In 2008, about $80,000 was spent repairing the gates and restoring the large granite monument that was placed just beyond the gates inside the park. In 2012 the monument was vandalized with graffiti.
Now the closed gates will serve as a backdrop for the memorial which can be seen from the road.
The Windsor Historical Society Veterans Memories Project got together with the City of Windsor to have the monument moved and to add flagpoles and better lighting. The light hasn’t been installed yet. A total of $2,500 in ward funds from city councillors Al Halberstadt and Irek Kusmierczyk were approved in March for the project.
There aren’t any First World War veterans left.
Vietnam veteran Ed Ruckle, 72, grew up in Windsor and served with the U.S. Air Force. Ruckle said to understand why the more prominent placement is important, you only have to read from a plaque on the Memorial Park gates with the poem In Flanders Fields: If you break faith with us who die we shall not sleep though poppies grow in Flanders fields.
“It really says don’t hide us in the background somewhere. Get us out in front so that the grandchildren will never ever forget the price was paid for freedom,” Ruckle said.
Matt Pritchard, a historian with the Windsor Historical Society Veterans Memories Project, said when you see the 837 names etched on the memorial, think of the 837 local moms who never got to welcome home a son or daughter after the war.
“Even driving by, someone might not even really know why Memorial Park is called Memorial Park, but now they can see the beautiful monument,” Pritchard said.