The Where They Called Home sign project in Sarnia identifies where fallen soldiers once lived and provides commemorative signs to be placed on the boulevard in front of their former residence.Photography provided by Sarnia's War Fallen: Where They Called Home
In the fall of 2023, Doug Woods of Sarnia, Ont., was visiting his singer-songwriter son, Donovan, in Toronto. The son told his father he had something he wanted to show him on the street.
Affixed to a utility pole was an 8.5-by-11-inch laminated sheet of paper. On it was the name of a Canadian soldier who had died fighting for his country. As a young man, the soldier had lived in the same house in which Donovan was now living. The small, rudimentary poster included details like the address where the soldier lived, as well as other facts about his service and ultimate fate.
John Paithouski with the memorial sign for his father, Michael, whose corvette HMCS Shawinigan was torpedoed by U-1228 in the Cabot Strait in November, 1944.
When Mr. Woods returned home, he told a curling buddy, Tom St. Amand, about the notice on the pole. What did he think about doing something similar in Sarnia?
Mr. St. Amand was on board. As it turned out, he knew that a former teaching colleague at St. Patrick’s High School, Tom Slater, was deep into a personal research project he began in 2012 to identify individuals from Sarnia who had lost their lives in service to the country, from the Boer War to Afghanistan.
Mr. Slater’s starting point was the cenotaph that stood at the city’s Veterans Park. It had 288 names on it. Mr. Slater wondered who these people were. What were their stories? It would not be an easy assignment. For starters, the cenotaph only had last names with a first-name initial or two.
Jennifer Calvert with the memorial sign for her brother, David Salmons, who was killed in Service to Canada in 1980.
“It started with just going to the local library and going through old Sarnia Observer newspapers,” Mr. Slater told me. “And then Archives Canada has an extensive collection of material, including the attestation forms that were filled out by the soldiers when they signed up. They included things like addresses and physical characteristics like height and weight and hair and eye colour.” The Canadian Virtual War Memorial was another crucial source of knowledge.
Mr. Slater’s pursuit of this information went on for more than a decade. (This year, he released the fourth edition of his three-volume collection of soldier profiles.) When Mr. St. Amand approached his friend with the idea of recognizing, in a much more public way, those from the Sarnia area who had died in uniform, Mr. Slater was armed with a treasure trove of material. And so it was that the Where They Called Home sign project was born.
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In 2024, the project team identified 250 soldiers, about 170 of whom they connected with a street address. This year, the group has named 315 soldiers who lost their lives in their Canadian uniform. Of that total, they were able to associate 185 with addresses where a home still stands, most of which are the originals. In other cases, high-rises, parking lots and businesses now occupy the land on which a fallen soldier’s home once stood.
The commemorative signs are placed on the boulevard in front of the soldier’s former residence. The signs include a picture of the person, where one was available, his name, his home address, the war in which he served, when he died, and where his remains rest today. They also include a QR code that, when scanned, produces even more biographical information.
For those soldiers who couldn’t be associated with an address, the organizers put up signs in Centennial Park, along the shore of the St. Clair River. They designed them in rows to replicate a military cemetery.
Fallen soldiers who couldn’t be associated with an address are remembered with signs in Sarnia's Centennial Park, along the shore of the St. Clair River.
“What stands out for me is the reflection and remembrance I have witnessed while joining others at our Centennial Park ‘cemetery,’” Mr. Woods said via e-mail. “I now realize that so many Canadians have not had the opportunity to visit European war cemeteries or memorials and what we have accomplished gives them a sense of what they may never otherwise experience.”
Ruth Ann Handy with the memorial sign of her brother, Kenneth Burr, who was killed in action in late December, 1944.
With each passing year, we witness fewer people wearing poppies. (Some judges have banned them from their courtrooms.) Wars from the last century, and the heroes who gave their lives fighting in them, fade in people’s memories. There are generations now who have little emotional connection with those events, and the citizen soldiers who signed up to protect the freedom we cherish today.
The homes the organizers in Sarnia have traced to soldiers are full of stories. Mothers once looked out of their living-room windows waiting, hoping, praying to see a son in uniform walking up the street. In some, sisters waited for brothers, wives waited for husbands. In too many cases, the loved ones for whom they waited never came home.
Mr. St. Amand, Mr. Slater and Mr. Woods deserve an enormous amount of credit for the hours they have put in to honour the fallen – and for helping ensure we don’t forget the ultimate sacrifice those Canadians made.