Carol Smith is the chair of the North Queens Remembrance Day Committee and chaplain with the North Queens Fire Association. (Rick Conrad)

When people in North Queens gather on Tuesday to commemorate the community’s war veterans, they’ll have a little help from a booklet and website honouring those who didn’t return.

The project is a collaboration between the North Queens Remembrance Day Committee, the North Queens Heritage Society and air force veteran Chris Charlton.

They’ve created a booklet called North Queens: We Will Remember Them. It profiles the 33 service members from the area who died in the two world wars and the Korean conflict.

“I think the importance is that these young men from North Queens were very committed to serving their country and to doing what was needed in their time,” says Carol Smith, chair of the Remembrance Day committee and chaplain of the North Queens Fire Association.

“And when you read the profiles, you just see what a huge change it must have been for them to leave rural Nova Scotia and go fight in faraway countries and just put their lives on the line. So it’s the enormity of their sacrifice that we need to remember. And I think that’s what Remembrance Day is all about, is realizing that we’re all called upon to want the greater good and to remember what they did for peace and what is it that we can do in our time and place. It’s just a great inspiration to me.”

Charlton, who was a Sea King pilot for 28 years and is a Gulf War veteran, approached the committee last year about a project he was working on to commemorate the war dead from North Queens.

The Maitland Bridge native wanted to profile each of the fallen veterans listed on the cenotaph in Caledonia.

“And we quickly got the committee together and started working with Chris,” Smith says. “Chris has done an amazing amount of work researching the lives of those whose names are on the cenotaph in North Queens, and he deserves a lot of credit for that because it’s been a labour of love for him.”

The committee received a $3,000 grant from Veterans Affairs Canada to print 250 booklets to distribute to families of the fallen. There will also be copies handed out at this year’s Remembrance Day service in Caledonia. Charlton will be at the ceremony.

The booklet includes a full profile and photos of each of the servicemen. There’s even more information on the North Queens Remembers website, including a treasure trove of archival documents.

“I think what makes them so very interesting is the details that Chris has put in, where each person was born, their family, where they enlisted, how they served, tragically where they died, where they’re buried, how their families were notified. It all brings to life their commitment and their sacrifice.”

Though Charlton wrote the profiles and compiled the documents, it was a community effort, including members of the former Royal Canadian Legion branch in Caledonia and the volunteer fire department.

“Part of it is to honour these people. And it would be easy to let the passage of time dim our memories. … A lot of the men were buried in foreign fields. And a lot of people have not been able to go and see the cemeteries. So this is just one way to connect us to the amazing stories for each of these people.”

The project was also a personal one for Smith. Her father Mervyn Dunn was a veteran of the Second World War. He returned home, but he didn’t talk much about his experiences overseas.

“He was in France, Italy, Holland, all those places, and he never talked about it. He never talked about it. Many veterans are like that, and I regret, I really regret, that I didn’t ask him more. … But, you know, so many people have the same story, that their fathers didn’t talk about it.”

At the Remembrance Day service in Caledonia on Tuesday, members of the committee will read the profile of Private Joseph Colp, whose brother Simeon is still alive and living in a nursing home in Lunenburg. They also plan to give one of the commemorative booklets to him.

“And I think this is a really good profile to read because it really highlights the sacrifice of so many. And Chris has mentioned in his profile that where he is buried, the cemetery contains the graves of those who died during the fighting at Moro River and Ortona. Today, there are 1,615 graves in the cemetery, of which 1,375 are Canadian.”

Smith says the committee has also given about 20 copies to the North Queens Community School, where teachers plan to use it in class projects. She hopes the document will inspire other groups to do similar research on veterans in their area.

“We used to have them around so that we could talk to them, but now we don’t. So I think these stories need to be told. And so if it could be an inspiration, that would be great.”

The Remembrance Day service in Caledonia is on Tuesday at 10:45 a.m. at the North Queens Fire Hall. 

Copies of the booklet are available for public viewing at the North Queens Heritage House Museum in Caledonia. You can visit the North Queens Remembers website at https://www.northqueensremembers.ca .

Email: rickconradqccr@gmail.com

Remembrance Day services around Queens County

A list of 2025 Remembrance Day services in Queens County.

Royal Canadian Legion Branch 038 in Liverpool, NS. Photo credit: Ed Halverson

Contributions to the Royal Canadian Legion’s annual poppy fund are way down this year thanks to the coronavirus.

President of Legion Branch 038 in Liverpool Larry Weagle said volunteers would normally set up tables in grocery stores and the NSLC but due to the pandemic, the retailer’s corporate offices aren’t allowing them in.

“The volunteers used to love it, and no problem getting them but we’ve got no place to put them,” said Weagle. “Everybody wants to do it but we’ve got no place to put them.”

Including the major grocery chains and NSLC, there are 39 retailers throughout Liverpool who have put out poppy trays to accept donations.

Weagle said in any other year, legion volunteers stationed at tables would also sell commemorative pins and other items adorned with poppies to increase the amount going to the poppy fund, but people can now only buy those items at the legion.

The Liverpool legion would traditionally raise close to $20,000 for the poppy fund and Weagle expects this year they’ll be lucky to bring in half that amount.

He’s disappointed because that’s money the legion uses to help veterans and their families in a variety of ways.

“We had two veterans that needed portable oxygen things, we had another guy that’s in a nursing home and he’d like to have a lift chair. So we got him that. We had another guy, never had a radio, so just little things like that. You know it adds up. Somebody needs a barrel of oil that can’t afford it, we get them that too. As long as he’s a veteran or a veteran’s family,” said Weagle.

The drop in donations is all the more reason for people to be aware of how to keep the money they’re giving going to local veterans according to Weagle. He says a donation to the poppy fund at the legion is the best way to ensure all the money stays in the community.

“You pay $55 for a wreath, we make three dollars, locally. We only get three dollars. If you make a donation, we get it all,” said Weagle.

Virtual poppies are becoming a popular way to show support for the legion but Weagle said the local branch sees none of that money as it all goes directly to the main headquarters in Ottawa.

The legion isn’t just struggling with poppy fund donations. They’re also having a hard time raising enough money to run their day-to-day operations.

Once they would host banquets of up to 140 people but that revenue is gone thanks to the coronavirus.

Weagle said they keep the lights on through a combination of hall rentals and events but COVID-19 has put a stop to a lot of it.

“No dances, no variety shows, no karaoke. It hurts,” said Weagle.

Legion Branch 038 President Larry Weagle. Photo credit: Ed Halverson

Weagle would like to see more people come in to take advantage of the take-out lunches they offer. But he understands some folks have an outdated idea about what the legion is.

“Look, you’ve got no way to make no money. People think the legion is a drinking establishment, that’s gone,” said Weagle. “Mostly now, people come here, we sell more pop and water than we do alcohol.”

He says donations to the legion come back to the community in many ways.

“People don’t realize what the legion does for our community. Our doors are always open for anybody. The community groups, they work with us. The funds that we give out, like, we give out the Salvation Army Christmas boxes and bursaries for high school kids, the food bank,” said Weagle.

A bright spot this season was an unexpected donation from Freeman Lumber for $1,000.

“It really surprised me,” said Weagle. “Because this is the first time any corporation that size gave a donation this big.”

Weagle assured Freeman Lumber the money would go directly to the poppy fund to help local veterans and their families.

He reminds anyone wishing to donate should specify whether they wish to direct their donation to the poppy fund or the legion itself. Information on how to donate is located at the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 038 Facebook page.

Reported by Ed Halverson 
E-mail: edhalversonnews@gmail.com
Twitter: @edwardhalverson