The Thiepval Memorial to the Missing was unveiled on 1 August 1932 and the pilgrimage to the Somme battlefields of France would be different this time. Generations to come would remember the Somme and would make much of this memorial to the dead. But on this day, and in this crowd, all minds were focused on but a single thought; of that name, that face, that voice which had once been dear to them and now was lost forever. This is just one commemoration of the life of Private David John Campbell Ireland of the 2nd Battalion of the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders who fell here at the Somme on...

"Four generations attended the golden wedding of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Corbett, 4815 Fifth Avenue. They gave Mr. Corbett a gold watch and Mrs. Corbett a brooch bearing a picture of her husband. Seventy-five relatives and friends attended the celebration, held Sunday. Mr. Corbett was born in Canada in 1833 and married Maria Keating in Toronto in 1859 after a tragedy in which another Canadian lost his life. The man who met death was Mr. Corbett's rival and thought Miss Keating was in danger of drowning. In attempting to save her he was drowned. It developed afterward that the woman who was...

"His Duty Done" are the immortal words inscribed on the gravestone of Private David Blyth Blair of the 14th Battalion, Black Watch Royal Highlanders. He was just 20 years of age when he fell at Moislains in the Somme region of France. The young Private of the dreaded Scottish Black Watch followed the sound of the pipes on that summer's day in September of 1918 into immortality of those who lost their lives during the Great War. This then is the story of Private David Blyth Blair on the Centennial of World War I.

In a letter to her great-nephew, the eldest child of Robert and Anna Buist, Mabel Edith (Buist) Teutsch wrote: "Dear Mike, Today is my Dad's Robert D. Buist] birthday. He was 87 years old when he passed away. He would have been very interested and happy to know of your great interest in his ancestry..." The ancestry of the Buist family goes back many generations in Scotland; however this is a narrative history of his children. Robert and Anna Buist had nine children although two died at very young ages. They were all raised in Chicago, Illinois and some of the older children traveled with...

Thomas and Maria Corbett had ten children who were all born in Fergus and Guelph, Wellington County, Ontario, Canada between the years of 1860 and 1876. One child, John did not survive infancy; Albina died at the age of 3 and Maud died at the age of 13. The surviving children would remember the farm their father farmed on or the hotels in Fergus that he ran. An older daughter, Anna would vividly remember her father as starting every morning while proprietor of the Queen's Arms Hotel as saying: "I woke up in the Queen's arms." These are the stories and biographies of good, decent, honest,...

Edward Payson Corbett lived a most interesting and varied life. He was born on the Corbett family farm in King Township, York County, Ontario, Canada. By the age of 10 he was residing on his father's farm in Garafraxa Township, Wellington County where he worked as he grew older. When the Civil War broke out in the United States, the restless farm hand left his family and traveled to Detroit, Michigan where he eventually enlisted in the Northern forces. He was assigned to the 3rd Regiment of Michigan Calvary, Company F and served during the duration of the war. After the war and during...

Known as the Diggers, the men of the 5th Australian Division had been in their trenches most of that clear summer's day of Wednesday, 19 July 1916. They had only arrived in France a few weeks earlier, some raw recruits like a young 18 year old named Roy Frederick Heard of Ryde, New South Wales, Australia. The Diggers were now preparing themselves to go over the top when that whistle blew. The intense fear they must have felt in those minutes before the sound of that dreaded whistle, one can only now imagine 100 years after that day. But on that summer's day in July of 1916 they did their...

"This N.C.O. Non-Commissioned Officer] has at all times shown great devotion to duty and keenness in his work both when in the trenches and billets. When in action his coolness and cheeriness has inspired all ranks with the utmost confidence. His courage has been frequently in evidence and has been reflected in the morale of the men under his control." This Despatch of Field Marshall Sir Douglas Haig was written on Sunday, 7 April 1918 for conspicuous services in the field on behalf of a soldier of the First World War named Harry Cleveland Goodsir, Company Sergeant Major of the 35th Infantry...