Lest We Forget

November 11, 2011 - Posted by Margaret Cesar

William Carr Stewart born 1898 in Aberdeen Scotland enlisted in the English army to serve in the first world war. Sent to the Dardenelles, to Gallipoli, that charnel house where old generals discovered old tactics didnt work against new weaponry. Where the 7th Light Brigade cavalry thundered into history charging artillery. Where Florence Nightingale invented modern nursing, where Australia paid for its nationhood with the blood of its young men, where bodies were stacked up to build watchtowers. My grandfather was sent to Gallipoli as a medic.

William Carr Stewart circa 1918, age 20

Wounded his shoulder was blown apart he was being evacuated by hospital ship tender when the heavily loaded boat threatened to swamp in the rising waves. He jumped overboard, hanging onto the tender with his good arm helping to both lighten the load and stabilize the boat. We can only imagine what salt water felt like on a wounded shoulder but the salt-sterilization may have saved his life given the state of army surgery at the time (no sterilization etc) and the lack of antibiotics (not having been invented).

William Carr Stewart returned home to Aberdeen a pale, gaunt youth with a sadness in those deep brown eyes.

But where he was always a quiet, gentle man he met and married a woman born 100 years too early.

Christina Kidd Duncan Stewart circa 1918, age 18

When the second world war broke out, my grandfather was not, due to his wounds, able to serve in any capacity. My grandmother, Christina Kidd Duncan Stewart born 1900 in Aberdeen, Scotland, decided if he couldnt, then she would. Rising quickly through the ranks she ended the war as a Regimental Sergeant-Major. Being a RSM suited my grandmother. At 4 foot, 11 and 3/4 inches (she gained the necessary quarter-inch to qualify for the army at her induction medical) she was a fair-skinned, blue-eyed dynamo. As a senior NCO, she served the army and the Canadian Womens Army Corps in an officer-training capacity. Im told she was the problem solver (most senior NCOs are) sent from barracks to barracks to sort out issues and this I could believe. After the war, she drove the process to form the first Womens Legion Association in Toronto and became its first president.

Neither of my grandparents talked about the serious side of the war. I dont recall my grandfather saying anything at all; my grandmother only telling the funny stories like how she almost blew up the city of Toronto on her first day in the army. Apparently she was told by the sergeant to count the dynamite. He meant cases. She meant sticks. So with this old, unstable dynamite, my grandmother was using hammers and wrecking bars to pry open the cases to count each stick inside. Im told the sergeant provided her very first introduction to creative army swearing after he finished regaining the color in his face.

I do remember the way my grandmother ran things in our family and how my grandfather only ran my grandmother once and then. Now Chris was the harshest I ever remembering him speaking and things changed on his soft words.

I do remember one special day when the Queen was visiting Canada. She was driven past my grandparents house on her way to an event and we were all (cousins, parents et al) out on the top balcony of the house. As the Queen drove by, she snapped a salute to the flags my grandmother was flying from the balcony (the Union Jack, the Scottish Lion Rampant, and the Canadian Ensign). I still remember the look on my grandparents faces that day and I still have those flags.

I remember my grandmother telling me the family was Canadian the day they got off the boat (immigration was different in those days) and all 5 of them (they had 3 surviving children) were instantly given citizenship. And how proud she was of her new country exclaiming 40 years later in her soft Aberdeen brogue how she didnt have a trace of Scottish accent left.

I remember my grandfather who was according to my father (a fine mechanic himself) the best mechanic he ever met, a genius with machinery going out to the club every Saturday afternoon to play darts, shoot some pool and have a beer or two with his friends. I remember this soft spoken man had a succession of budgies all named Billy who were taught to say, Anybody want a beer? to the amusement of all and the consternation (my cousin reminds me) of the visiting minister. I remember him looking in a mirror saying, Youre a good-looking man Bill Stewart with his dark-eyes grinning back at himself.

But above all, I remember the fierce loyalty my grandparents had for this new country that offered them a new life and a chance after losing too many children in Scotland.

They served two countries but made a home and family in one.

It is this kind of service and commitment to both country and family that I cant forget. And if I can pass this along to my children, I will have kept their memory and legacy alive.

William Carr Stewart, Christina Kidd Duncan Stewart, I do indeed remember.

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