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A journey of remembrance
By Cathy Stapells
Here, I read the bare facts about Uncle Errol in the newspaper clippings that reported his death. He was a graduate of the University of Toronto, with degrees in political science and economics. He was enrolled in law at Osgoode Hall when he enlisted. Prior to the war, he had six years of military training with the 2nd Queen’s Own Rifles. He played rugby and was an oarsman with the Argonaut Rowing Club in Toronto. With the rank of lieutenant, he went overseas with the 35th Battalion, serving with A Company, 3rd Battalion in France and Belgium. He was 24 years old when he died on May 5, 1916.
To my grandmother, Errol was much more. He was an adored brother. Their family lived in London, Ont., before moving to Toronto when Kae was about eight years old and Errol was 13. “Oh, he could be a devil,” my grandmother once told me. She also recalled how she had fallen one morning, while racing to hitch a ride to school on the milk wagon. Errol jumped off to pull her out of the snow bank. He was her hero long before he went off to war.
It was only after my grandmother died that I was given Uncle Errol’s letters and began to read them. Within them I heard his voice for the first time. I have the sense that while he didn’t underestimate the danger he was in, he could also see the war as a grand adventure, and brought his obvious good humour to the situation.
Errol and his fellow soldiers shipped off to England on June 4, 1915, and his letters are filled with love for his family, advice to Kae about her school exams and the details of army camp life: the fairly decent food, the training that included 7 a.m. physical drills, 10-mile marches and bayonet practice. He also writes about the boredom of waiting to go to the front, and occasional trips he made with his friend George Mackenzie to London and the countryside in Devon where they were stationed