Sunday, November 11, saw the vast ballroom of the Niverville Heritage Centre filled to near capacity as approximately 650 residents gathered to remember those who paid the ultimate price to buy our freedom. Also acknowledged were the many men and women who have and still serve in military roles. This year marked the one hundredth anniversary of the end of World War I.
The gathered crowd stood and applauded as some of the few remaining World War II veterans were wheeled in or made their slow ascent to the front of the ballroom. Among them was a U.S. veteran of the Vietnam War.
Remembrance Day committee member Lorraine Kehler opened the ceremony, reading true story accounts of the emotion that marked the day the fighting ceased on November 11, 1918. Telecommunications at the time were poor, leaving many unaware of the ceasefire until days afterward. But as news circulated the globe, celebrations broke out in the streets the likes of which many had never experienced before.
Close to 61,000 Canadians were killed during the five-year war, and another 172,000 were wounded. Many casualties returned home to their Canadian families broken in mind and body. Medical professionals of the day called the brain trauma shellshock. Today, it’s better known as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Whatever the term applied, it was poorly understood and few treatments were available. Many more soldiers succumbed to suicide after their return.
Students from Niverville Collegiate’s drama club drew the audience in with vignettes written by committee member Natalie Batkis.
“We decided to do something a little different this year and wrote six dramatic vignettes highlighting how life is for people who serve or have served in the military and how it directly affects their family members,” says Batkis. “Our hope was that it would make the stories more current, more relatable to younger generations and that it would have an emotional impact on them.”
Cloaked behind a screen, the characters’ silhouettes told stories of a mother whose son went off to war, of a returned soldier suffering under the debilitating effects of PTSD, and a military mother who feels the guilt of leaving her own children behind in order to help bring peace to someone else’s child.
“I’d read some letters written by soldiers who had served in WWI,” Batkis adds, “and I also read accounts of peacekeeping missions, particularly Rwanda, in order to better understand the atrocities that occurred there and how people coped when they returned. When it came to the vignette of a mother waiting for her son to return from war, honestly, a lot of that was me imagining my little boy having to go to war. That was all written from my own perspective as a mother.”
Two minutes of silence was observed by all in attendance, followed by the laying of wreaths from a variety of dignitaries including Tache councillor Jacques Trudeau, Niverville Deputy Mayor John Funk, and Colonel Ron Walker. The event closed with a luncheon served by the Heritage Centre staff.
Batkis says it takes a lot of volunteers to pull off this event every year. The committee of ten is always looking for new volunteers. The local Scouts were also involved, handing out poppies and greeting guests at the door.
“Including children and youth in our program is very important to us because we want to make sure we pass the torch when it comes to Remembrance Day,” Batkis says. “If we get the younger generations understanding that war isn’t so far removed from them, that it affects their family and friends, it makes it more real to them and our hope is that it stays with them.”
