Thread: Red Friday
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Old 11-02-2006, 10:59 AM   #39
charlene
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Join Date: May 2000
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TT - the link I provided has a history of The Poppy.

Canada has 3 remaining vets from WW1...two live in Toronto at Sunnybrook Hospital which is home to many of our veterans.
WWI vet, 105, still singing
By BRIAN GRAY, TORONTO SUN
Veteran Dwight Wilson has a song in his heart when he's asked about the Great War.

One of only three living Canadian World War I vets, the 105-year-old lives in Sunnybrook hospital's Kilgour Wing, where he sometimes entertains staff and fellow residents with a song or two by the piano.

"I love to sing and I love the people who hear me sing," Wilson said in hushed tones before belting out the 1940s Broadway tune If I Loved You -- his favourite song.

Wilson's son said his father just felt he was doing his duty in 1915 when he enlisted at the age of 15.

"He didn't talk about it too much but he was proud of what he did for the country," Paul Wilson, 72, said.

One of his childhood memories is a German artillery shell that was used as a doorstop in his family's Queen St. and Coxwell Ave. home.

It turned out to be live, and Canadian munitions experts had to come and retrieve it, he said.

A long-time hockey lover and a fan of the Detroit Tigers, Wilson isn't right up to date on today's events.

But he's happy to be living with fellow WWI veteran Lloyd Clemett, who is 106.

"I like the atmosphere," Wilson said.

And Paul Wilson said his dad is doing very well for someone of his age -- even better since he moved into Sunnybrook in June.

Canada's other living WWI vet, 106-year-old John Babcock, lives in Spokane, Wash.

[ November 02, 2006, 13:52: Message edited by: charlene ]
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