Tom Slater & Tom St. Amand
The morning of Monday, Nov. 7, 1921 was cloudy and chilly, but hundreds of bystanders waited patiently until the final speaker, Mayor George Crawford, introduced a piece of Sarnia’s history.
During his brief remarks, Crawford reminded Sarnians “we can never pay off the debt we owe those lads and their friends for their brave sacrifices.”
Then, as a glint of sunshine brightened the grey skies, he released a flag covering the monument and the solemn onlookers saw Sarnia’s cenotaph for the first time.
Nearly a century later, the cenotaph continues to stand guard over Veterans Park (formerly Victoria Park), although its appearance has changed over time.
The original rectangular cenotaph featured two bronze tablets front and back, listing the names of more than 1,000 Sarnians who served with the Allied forces in the First World War, also known as The Great War.
Another tablet on west side contained the names of 60 Sarnians killed in the war.
In July of the following year, Mayor Crawford began looking for a suitable statue to stand atop the cenotaph. The bronze figure chosen was of a Canadian “Tommy,” a man in the full uniform of a Canadian soldier. Facing south, the soldier stands at attention, a rifle strapped over his left shoulder, his eyes fixed on some point on the horizon.
On Nov. 11, 1922, the Sarnia cenotaph with its new bronze statue was rededicated, and a fourth bronze tablet added to the east side of the granite block. It listed the names of 42 more Sarnia men who died in the Great War but whose names had inadvertently been omitted from the original tablets.
For more than three decades the cenotaph remained unchanged—even though the Second World War and the Korean Conflict came and went and at least 160 more Sarnians had been killed in action.
Local residents, of course, wanted to pay homage to the fallen, and groups gathered to discuss how best to commemorate them. Several proposals were tabled, ranging from building an auditorium to cultivating a memorial park. But for various reasons all the plans collapsed.
The impetus to finally do something was provided by Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent, who visited the city in 1950. St. Laurent was surprise Sarnia did not have a cenotaph honouring its recently fallen soldiers, and said so.
In response, several dedicated groups and individuals saw to refurbishing the existing cenotaph. A decade after the Second World War ended, the renovated memorial was re-dedicated in a heartfelt ceremony on Remembrance Day, 1955.
The “new” cenotaph is essentially what we have today.
The four bronze tablets were removed and relocated to the outside west wall of the Front Street Legion. And the original monument was enlarged with the addition of two new wings, on which were inscribed the names of Sarnia’s fallen from both world wars.
A separate plaque near the base contains the names of Private Knight and Private O’Connor, who died in the Korean War.
But a few changes remained. When the new library was built in the late 1950s the cenotaph was moved slightly to its present location.
And in November 2008 a final plaque was added. It reads: “OTHER THEATRES OF CONFLICT—CPL BRENT POLAND—AFGHANISTAN 2007”
In 2013, the Royal Canadian Legion, Branch 62, with some federal assistance, subsidized the restoration of damaged joints and tarnished plaques.
Sarnia’s Cenotaph isn’t perfect. Some names are missing and a few are misspelled, which was not unusual for the time.
But for nearly a century now the centrepiece of Veterans Park, funded by the citizens of Sarnia and subjected to several alterations, has been a constant reminder that the sacrifices made by so many will never be forgotten.