Holders Happenings

SPECIAL REMEMBRANCE DAY EDITION

A Personal Story of Remembrance

 Last month, just prior to going to Belgium, I casually mentioned to a staff member that my Uncle Byron (William Byron Holder) was buried somewhere in Europe a casualty of the Second World War.  Unfortunately, as my family did not know where he was buried, no one had ever visited his final resting place.  It was a family mystery which I did not expect to be solved and only compounded further by the promise I made my father to someday visit his brothers grave on behalf of the family.

Well, you can imagine my complete surprise and shock when just a few minutes later, I was presented with his personal information, military service details, location of his gravesite, a cemetery map, photos of his tombstone, a map of the cemetery and even a copy of the page from the Book of Remembrance in the Peace Tower that contains his name.  Armed with this information, easily obtained from the internet, I decided to visit on behalf of our entire family. 

After a quick re-jigging of my schedule I made a pilgrimage to Uncle Byrons gravesite in Adegem, Belgium.  This was the first time a member of my family had ever visited and I had a nervousness about what I fully expected and knew would be an emotional visit.  I arrived on a national holiday (with no public transit service) and had to rely on the generous help of strangers to get to the cemetery.  I spent over two hours in the cemetery, placed Canadian flags on surrounding Canadian graves, signed the Visitors Registry and just let the significance of the visit sink in.  If you can ever make it to one of these immaculately-maintained European cemeteries to visit our war dead, I highly recommend it.  No amount of mental preparation could have prepared me for the emotions experienced that day, standing before the tombstone, reading and touching the name of one of my family members who died for Canada and Europes freedom and surrounded by hundreds of other Canadians who did the same.

The experience reached back to Canada as I telephoned my aunts in Holderville, New Brunswick to let them know that I was at their brothers final resting place.  Without going into detail, I will tell you it was a very special day and experience for the entire family.  I have posted photos taken that day to share with you.

This coming year, when Uncle Byrons name comes up for viewing in the Peace Tower on Parliament Hill, I plan to visit the Memorial Chamber.  In many ways, this is the only part of Uncle Byron that made it back to Canada and so I now better understand why so many visitors are overcome with emotion at reading the names of their lost family members.  To many, it is a list of over 116,000 names, but when that certain name comes up, it makes it very personal.

Now, I want to share this with you so that you may be able to do the same.  It is our obligation to remember those who sacrificed for our nation and that responsibility begins with those to whom we are related.

Finding Our Fallen - To help explain the process, I will show you how we found my Uncle Byron and his information.  Hopefully your searches yield as much information.

1.      Visit the Veterans Affairs Canadian Virtual War Memorial online at here.  (If you are looking for an Allied soldier, who was not serving with a Canadian regiment, you could also try a similar search through the Commonwealth War Graves Commission at www.cwgc.org as they keep track of all Allied cemeteries.)

2.      Search by name.  In this case, we searched the last name Holder.

3.      Select the soldier you are looking for.  In this case, I found out my Uncle Byron was actually William Byron Holder.

4.      Review the results of the search.  When available, it will include photos, a copy of the page from the Book of Remembrance, vital personal details and possibly even a summary of the circumstances surrounding the soldiers death.  (If you have photos or information to contribute to the collection, please do so to honour the legacy of our fallen.)

5.      After finding this information, a quick search using Google and the name of the Adegem Canadian War Cemetery yielded a link to here.  This site had additional information including photos of all the tombstones, lists of those buried here (alphabetical and regimental) and a good description of the cemetery itself.  Please dont consider the Veterans Affairs Canadian Virtual War Memorial as the only possible source of information and dont underestimate the power of a good online search engine like Google.

6.      Share your findings and experiences with others in a gesture of Remembrance.  I would love to hear from anyone who uses this process and finds it as rewarding as I did.