J.W. Burleson photo / Boquillas del Carmen, Coah.

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Armistice Day (Remembrance Day) in Montreal.


Sgt John J.K. O'Brien, RCAF.  Jack became very ill in Africa and was flown home to die at the Royal Victoria Hospital, Montreal.
November 11th. At 11pm there was always the 2-minute silence in the city. Lingering ghosts from WWI (as well as WWII) haunted Montreal when I was growing up. There was the soldier at the Cenotaph, with the angel fluttering over his shoulder, pointing the way--to where, exactly? The sound of the guns? Death? Afterlife?  And at Lower Canada College, all those portraits of Old Boys, with their slicked-back hair and itchy woolen hockey sweaters, killed in the trenches.  There's a chapter in The O'Briens that's on Dominon Square (now Dorchester Square) in Montreal during an Armistice Day commemoration in the early 1920s.
Jack's name is on the Westmount (Montreal) Cenotaph.


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