2 weeks Ago By [email protected] (Reagan McSwain)
Kathleen Lynett knew immediately from the sound of her mother’s voice that something was wrong. It was during the Second World War and she called her mother from the small downtown Toronto office where she worked, eager to know if any war mail had been delivered to their west-end home. “It’s John,” her mother said.
“He’s dead.” Lynett, now 103, shared stories of her brother, John Richard Griffin, who was killed in action during a Royal Canadian Air Force mission over England in 1942 at the age of 24. The last time she would see her brother was when she, her family and their friends waved goodbye to him as he pulled out of Toronto’s Union Station.
His name is one of more than 1,300 soldiers commemorated in this year’s “They Walked These Streets, We Will Remember Them” project, which spans 11 neighbourhoods across Toronto’s west end, including Bloor West, Junction, High Park, Swansea, and Humbercrest. It runs until Nov. 11, and a year-round can be accessed on the memorial’s website.
Kathleen Lynett at her west-end home, remembers her brother John Richard Griffin who died in the Second World War. Created by high school teachers Katy Whitfield and Ian Da Silva, this is now in its fifth year. The self-guided tour honours soldiers who served in both world wars with displays at locations tied to where they lived, worked, went to school or church.
At each memorial site, soldiers’ personal information is shared, including their enlistment and death dates, the medals they received, and where they were connected in the city. “I’ve lost track of how much time I spent researching, but at least over 1,000 hours,” said Whitfield, teacher at Bloor Collegiate Institute and project coordinator who also has a background in history and military research. This year, the displays are interactive.
Visitors can scan QR codes at each memorial site and pull archival information including historical newspapers and military records, from the Canadian Virtual War Memorial, Library and Archives Canada and the Canadian Great War Project. At the Annette Street Public Library, one of the 11 memorial sites, Griffin’s name and information can be found. The library is just 98 metres from the childhood home where he grew up with his family.
“That’s great. John loved to read,” Lynett said about where his display was located. As a kid, I spent all my time in the library.
” She remembers Saturday mornings when the “little ones” would go and listen to stories being read there. John Richard Griffin wrote letters often to friends and family during his short time overseas during the Second World War. His sister Kathleen Lynett has saved many of them.
She says her brother had a high IQ. In fact, he was encouraged to go on to university by school teachers, but because of the Great Depression, and in a time without social assistance for post secondary education, there was no money available. His extended family of aunts and uncles banded together to help pay for his schooling.
He would successfully complete one year at the University of Toronto before enlisting in the Canadian Air Force, following a lecture on Hitler. “Once he heard the evil Hitler was doing, there was no changing his mind,” Lynett said. Griffin, described as smart, and well liked because he was so kind to others, wrote letters to many people in his short time overseas.
A thick binder safekeeps his words using acid free paper, in an attempt by Lynett’s family to preserve them. For Whitfield, this project is about remembering the past but to also encourage her current students to take an interest in Canadian History. “Most of the students I teach.
.. don’t necessarily have any connection, yet there’s a call to remember on Remembrance Day.
Who are these kids remembering and why? My whole teaching philosophy is to get beyond the textbook,” said Whitfield. Alice Buckley, a Grade 11 student at Bloor Collegiate Institute, was involved with the project as a researcher through the school’s history club. What she found most interesting, while going through historical documents to create the soldiers’ datasheets, was reading letters written to families from soldiers, and seeing what words they chose to use and what they wanted to tell their families.
“Expressions we don’t use today like “I do say!,” and “swell” stood out to the 16-year-old, but “what were most moving are direct mentions of local spots...
or naming Toronto high schools when listing a young soldiers death” “It means a great deal to see John’s name, it’s lovely,” said Lynett “He’s not forgotten. John’s story was lost in time, and this (memorial) brought it back.”.
