After a preliminary outline of the origins of Remembrance Day,  Rtn. Will Vermeer gave us an indoor “Spirit Walk”, that is a story about a veteran buried in the Dryden cemetery.
 

Brief History of Remembrance Day

 
Armistice Day was inaugurated in 1919 throughout much of the British Empire, but on the second Monday in November. In 1921, the Canadian Parliament passed an Armistice Day bill to observe ceremonies on the first Monday in the week of 11 November, but this combined the event with the Thanksgiving Day holiday. For much of the 1920s, Canadians observed the date with little public demonstration. Veterans and their families gathered in churches and around local memorials, but observances involved few other Canadians.
 
In 1928, some prominent citizens, many of them veterans, pushed for greater recognition and to separate the remembrance of wartime sacrifice from the Thanksgiving holiday.
 
In 1931, the federal government decreed that the newly named Remembrance Day would be observed on 11 November and moved Thanksgiving Day to a different date. Remembrance Day would emphasize the memory of fallen soldiers instead of the political and military events leading to victory in the First World War.
 

The story of Albert Edward (Ted) Thompson

Albert Edward (Ted) Thompson was born on May 24th 1892 in Hornby, in the county of Lancashire, in Northern England. His birth certificate indicates that he was born at the Union Workhouse in Hornby of which John Mattinson was the Master along with his wife Agnes. In 1891, a year earlier, Mary Jane Catherine Thompson, age 19 is shown as a cook and domestic working for the Mattinsons at the Union Workhouse.
 
However, Ted’s birth certificate shows the mother as Agnes Thompson, a domestic...but no father is listed.
 
Little is known about his formative years but it is thought that he grew up in Hornby at the Union Workhouse with the Mattinsons.
 
In November 1909, at age 17, he left Liverpool on the S.S. Grampian and arrived in Halifax on November 30, 1909.
 
Ted spent a bit of time in the Hamilton area but eventually made his way to western Manitoba and he lists his occupation as farmer on his attestation papers .
 
After the outbreak of WW1, he enlisted on August 16, 1914 in Minnedosa, MB and by September 14, 1914 was in Valcartier, Quebec and became part of the 5th Battalion that headed for England in October.
 
When they went in France, one of his duties was to ensure that the soldiers at the front lines got their rations on time. He would disregard the dangers of shell-swept roads and the inconveniences of the vast mud areas in which his limbers (two-wheeled carts) would get bogged down in order to ensure that rations arrived.
On February 16, 1916, at Ploegsteert Woods in Flanders, the limber on which he was driving was hit by a shell killing the driver and horses and severely wounding Thompson in the back, legs, and arms.
 
After spending about a year in hospital, he was discharged in February 1917 as being unfit for duty.
 
Less than a year later and thinking he still had it, he reenlisted and after some obstacles, he ended up going back to England in August of 1918 where he spent the rest of the war until returning to Canada in 1919. He again returned to the employ of the CPR.
 
At some point thereafter, he met Margaret Jewsbury and they were married on June 10, 1924 in Glenboro MB.
 
For the next 22 years, the Thompsons resided in Glenboro where a son, Clare was born.
 
Ted was involved with the local Masons and was District Deputy Grandmaster in 1924.
 
In 1946, he transferred to Wabigoon as the local CPR agent where he stayed until he retired in 1957.
 
Ted and his wife then moved into Dryden where Ted was a member of the Rotary Club of Dryden until his death in 1977.