Remembrance Essays

VETERANS ANNOUNCE PRIZE WINNERS – Many Boys and Girls Compete in Poppy Day Competition – G. B. MacDonald First.

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    In  connection with the essays submitted by the high school on the Flanders poppy, the first prize has been accorded. In the final analysis the decision of the judges was made from ten preliminary selections, namely Dorothy McKowan, Stanley Moffatt, Connie Bassett, Jas. Taylor, Eustice Lee, G. B. MacDonald, Marjorie Burton, Eunice Parrett, Alma Sarvis, Norman Beech, and Jessie Baynes.  All these were excellent compositions, and nearly on a par considering the difference in the divisions of the contestants.  The final choice was allotted to No. 9 in the list, G. B. MacDonald, of this city.  No. 25, Miss Sarvis, was the best, but it was ruled out because of the length , it containing almost 200 words more than the essay called for.  Many of them showed much time and thought, although several showed the apparent hold of older hands in their construction, etc.  However this could not be very well made a basis of ineligibility, so that the essays stood on their merits as presented to the judges.  The prize of $10.00 is accordingly awarded to G. B. MacDonald, honorable mention is, as above noted, made to those essays who were selected as the basis for award.

    In the public schools a much harder task was in store for the judges owing to the vast number of compositions submitted and the worth of a great number of them.  The number simmered down to the best three  in each division made the task somewhat easier, but even then the judging committee were in a quandary as to just how to arrive at a just basis of scoring points.  On a straight basis, Essay number L was granted almost as many points as the best of the group, and when final adjustment was made, for this contestant, a junior second reader pupil, it was considered the best submitted.  The neatness, style and originality of thought carried through the whole essay, made a most favorable impression on the judges.  Too many here again showed that the thoughts expressed by little minds, were without question far above their native ability and were accordingly not for consideration.  Some were very humorous and some written in a straight forward business-like manner.  Nearly all, however, showed that the children had really given some little time to their subject for which the committee wish to express their gratification.

    The pupil who is accordingly awarded the first prize of $10.00 is Eileen Gray, of Cranbrook.  The one who was the lucky recipient of the second prize of $5.00 was No. 79.  This too showed that the writer had expended some little time in the writing and the construction of the paper showed this also.  The pupil who was awarded second prize is Winnifred Beale of this city.

    In view of the fact that there were so many entrants and of such a standard, it was thought advisable to grant to the other essays $1.00 for the best essay of each division.  The following awards were accordingly made:

    Kathleen Worthington, senior 2^nd.

    Muriel Reade, Junior 3^rd

    Pauline Rosen, Jaffray, Senior 3^rd

    Eileen McQuaid, Senior 4^th

    Lillian Jones, Bull River, Jr. 4^th

Cranbrook High School

    First Prize, G. B. MacDonald:-

THE POPPIES OF FLANDERS FIELD.

    No more beautiful or suitable flower could have been chosen as a lasting memorial to the fallen in the Great World War, than the scarlet poppies which grow so luxuriantly between the rows of white crosses which mark the resting place of our dead on the Fields of Flanders and Northern France.

    Swaying gracefully in the winds that blow across the open spaces of “No Man’s Land,” with the incense of their fragrance burning to the blue sky above, these flowers are assuredly Nature’s offering of comfort and healing to this devastated area – some time the scene of such pitiless carnage.

            In the poppies scarlet petals is reflected and transmuted the ebbing lifeblood of the gallant manhood which speaks so feelingly in Col. McRae’s poem entitled “In Flander’s Fields” and immortalizes the poppy, which is the emblem to their memory.

    The third and last stanza of this deathless poem bears the message and appeal which should live forever in the heart of humanity:

            “To you, from failing hands, we throw

            The Torch.  Be yours to hold it high.”

    This solemn message from the dead cannot be accepted lightly.  We took the torch from their falling, nerveless hands, and now the responsibility is ours.  In the psychological as well as the literal sense we must not break faith with those who died that we might live.

    Let the heroic dead sleep on beneath their covering of soothing poppy leaves.  Each year as the poppies bloom afresh, let us renew our vows of remembrance lest we should be tempted to break faith with those whose heroic sacrifice strike the highest note of human achievement.

Cranbrook Central School

    First Prize, Eileen Gray, 2^nd Reader

AN ESSAY ON FLANDERS POPPY

    Flanders Poppy is blood red.  It grows wild in France.  It has been spoken about a lot lately on account of its growing where so many of our brave fellows are buried.  There is a drug extracted from the poppy, which is called Laudanum, and the doctors use it for relieving pain.

    On Armistice Day, November 11^th, 1921, many thousands of silk poppies are to be sold, and the money that is collected will be used to help the widows and children who have been left destitute.  Many of these are homeless as well as fatherless, on account of the terrible war of 1914.

    I am going to buy a poppy, and I hope every boy and girl, and man and woman will buy one, and give more than ten cents for it.  This is the first time that the poppy has been sold, and I hope that it will be worn by everybody.  I think we ought to give as much as we can because these brave fellows gave up their lives to protect us at home.  We should always think of the splendid poem entitled “In Flanders Fields” composed by one of these brave heroes now sleeping among the poppies:

            “If ye break faith we shall not sleep

            Though poppies grow right at our feet,”

I think this must have been an appeal to those who were left at home, to try and help their loved ones that were left so helpless.

    I am going to stay home from the picture show to give more money for a poppy.

    Would it not be nice if some person would compose a song about the Flanders poppy and we could sing it in our schools.

    I hope every person will wear one of these pretty poppies.

Second Prize

    Winnifred Beale, Division 2.

            “In Flanders’ Fields the poppies blow

            Between the crosses, row on row.”

-          John McRae.

    In France and Flanders, where during the war our soldiers fought so bravely, women and children are making red silk poppies; these poppies are to be sold to collect money for homes for the makers of them, whose homes were destroyed in the Great War.  Not only is it for the homes of these people, but to relieve any other suffering.  It is hard for us to picture the suffering of these people, who are even now homeless, three years after the armistice was signed, when we have gotten over any minor trouble.

    The Flanders poppy has four red petals; it grows wild in the graves of our soldiers; it is in many ways suitable to be the memorial poppy; it suggests sleep; it is the color of the blood shed; it sometimes has green in the centre, which suggests life in death.

    The memorial flower, the poppy, means more than some of us over here think; it reminds us of the sufferings of our soldiers.  It makes us think of what is happening now in the places where the war was raging for four years.  When we think of that poem by Colonel McRae, we think of our soldiers lying there now, because of us and their love for their country.

    And isn’t it nice to think of the poppies growing there when we can’t put them on ourselves.  I hope that those brave men who died know that we have kept our promise to them, and as “Lillard” says “They should rest in peace.

            “With each a cross to mark his bed,

            And poppies blowing overhead.”

    I think every true Canadian, and everyone who loves his country, will buy a memorial poppy.