When Geneviève Stock was eight or nine years old, she drew a picture of her grandpa with his five best friends. They’re young in the picture, late teens or early 20s, all of them wearing their big black boots and sturdy green uniforms.
Growing up, Stock’s grandfather told her many stories about when he was young.
One was of a pact he and his friends had made. If any of them didn't make it back from the war, the ones that did would name their children after them.
Stock’s grandfather, Hugh Hassan, is no longer alive. But when he and his friends went to war, he was the only one who survived.
That’s why Stock has an uncle named John, named for one of his father’s fallen best friends.
“He was a very special grandfather to myself and my sister,” Stock said. “I wish I’d written [his stories] down… And I wish I had that picture.”
LOCALIZING REMEMBRANCE
One of Stock’s closest friends, Katy Whitfield, has spent the last six years bringing the stories of soldiers like Hassan and his friends to life.
Whitfield, a high school history teacher who won the Governor General's History Award in 2015, started the They Walked These Streets, We Will Remember Them initiative during the pandemic, with her colleague Ian Da Silva.
This year, anyone walking in west-end Toronto between Nov. 1 and 11 might stumble across one of 13 installations that share stories of individual soldiers who once lived in nearby houses. The project spans seven neighbourhoods, from Humbercrest United Church to Bloor Collegiate in Parkdale.
Whitfield says it started when Da Silva told her his kids had found a red pool noodle in the garage and wanted to make poppies.
Whitfield then researched the historical records of soldiers who used to live in the neighbourhood, using an interactive map called Poppy File created by Toronto journalist Patrick Cain.
That first year, in 2020, a year of no public Remembrance Day ceremonies, they commemorated 13 local soldiers. A moment of silence was held on Da Silva’s lawn. One of their neighbours played “Reveille” on their cellphone.
Whitfield said what she finds most interesting about the project is the way it reminds her of how communities overcame hardship.
“Through hard times, people found connection, worked together, went through tragedy and struggle and loss,” she said. “These stories, and how communities change, gives me hope.”
This year, the project commemorates more than 1,300 soldiers.
Whitfield’s father, David, who helped design the memorials, says neighbours often stop to say thank you for the project. But he says he can tell that what they really want is to talk.
“And that's the thing I find most fascinating. I call it ‘the camo’ for them,” he said.
“It gives them a raison d’être to share, and they'll say, ‘My father, my uncle, my brother…,’” David said. “I find it so wonderful because it does cause people to open up.”
PERSONAL CONNECTIONS
Whitfield said her own connection to Remembrance Day includes her maternal grandfather, a gunner in the Second World War. But she says the connection became even stronger while her cousin was serving in Afghanistan.
“[My cousin and I] would have conversations from time to time, from [his] satellite phone in the middle of the desert,” she said. “And you know, they would make announcements that a Canadian soldier had died, and I had my heart in my throat every time.”
But for those without a clear connection, Whitfield says the key is to make history tangible.
In workshops she facilitated in schools during her sabbatical, Whitfield shared information with kids about individual soldiers. She then encouraged each child to choose one person they wanted to know more about.
“And then a number of kids [were] like, ‘That pilot lived right in my house. He lived on my street,’” Whitfield said. “It changes how they think about it.”
Whitfield has also seen the benefits of this approach with her own high school students at Bloor Collegiate. Some of them have curated exhibits or made scrapbook pages for the project.
Lauren Dick, a Grade 12 student, said helping with the project has made history feel more real.
“I was very surprised by the number of soldiers who attended Bloor [Collegiate],” Dick said in an email. “Knowing that many of these soldiers weren’t much older than us when they died on the field was a shock.”
COMMUNITY MUSEUM
Last week, students’ museum and scrapbook displays were showcased at a community event for the project. Black-and-white pages with photos, newspaper clippings and handwritten notes lined the perimeter of the sanctuary of Runnymede United Church.
In the back, visitors could use the Poppy File map to see if a soldier used to live near their house. Neighbours talked to neighbours about their personal connections to Remembrance Day.
Sandra Dunn said her father was in medical school when the Second World War broke out.
She said his program was fast-tracked because they wanted to get students to the front as quickly as possible. He ended up as a physician in Halifax, tending to POWs who had come over in ships from Europe.
“Those young, unfortunate prisoners of war were very, very happy with the service they got,” Dunn said.
“My dad didn't talk much about it, but he would say on occasion that so many of them stayed back, brought their families over. So it was a happy story for them,” she said.
Another visitor, Brandon Corazza, said he was a teenager when he discovered his great uncle had been something of a hero.
He said his great uncle was on a train in Italy during the Second World War, and someone had just pushed a German soldier off the train. When other soldiers went to shoot a little girl in retaliation, Corazza said his great uncle took the bullet instead and was killed.
“It only got brought up when my dad was talking to one of his friends,” Corazza said.
“I was like, ‘What? How do I not know this story?’ And he was like, ‘Well, there’s some things you just don’t imagine you’re ever going to bring up.’”
LIVING STORIES
At the entrance of the sanctuary was the story of John Griffin, who died while serving when he was just 24.
His sister, Kathleen Lynett, said in an article last year that Griffin was smart and loved to read, and that “once he heard the evil Hitler was doing, there was no changing his mind” about enlisting.
Lynett is now 104 years old. She was featured in the article after she discovered her lost brother, John, was being remembered through They Walked These Streets.
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Stock, Whitfield's close friend, was happy to see the article come out. But when she started to read it, she felt more than the usual pride in her friend’s project.
Stock knew the name John Griffin. She’d known it for a long time. In fact, it was one of the names she’d written on that picture she drew as a kid.
That was John, one of her grandfather’s best friends, who shares a name with her uncle, because of the pact her grandfather made.
“I was thrilled,” Stock said. “The circle gets bigger and bigger.”
Now, the Stock and Lynett families are planning to meet and share more stories. Whitfield says connections like these — between people still living — are emerging more and more through the project.
She says they fill an important gap in the way people remember history.
“Behind all of those newspaper articles that were written about all these soldiers are the stories of their moms, their dads, their sisters, their surviving family members,” Whitfield said. “And so behind the stories of those that we've lost, what's starting to come out are the stories of the living.”