This November, Wellington County Library invites the community to remember together, one poppy at a time. When you visit your library branch this month, you’ll find displays featuring items that tell stories of wartime and those who served and sacrificed. Among the items you might find a copy of John McCrae’s famous poem “In Flanders Fields”, which helped inspire the poppy’s adoption as a symbol of remembrance in Canada.
In recent years, communities all over Canada have embraced large scale poppy projects, inviting community members to knit and crochet poppies that are brought together to create beautiful installations which you will now find in many of our Wellington County communities. If you look closely at displays at several Wellington County Library branches, you’ll see that every poppy was made by hand. You can even register here to learn to create your own fibre-art poppy at the Arthur Branch on November 7. Poppy crafts and activity sheets for children will also be available at many branches.
To hear the personal stories of our veterans both on the home front and the front lines, join Wellington County Museum and Archives at the Hillsburgh Branch on Tuesday, November 3. You can register here for that evening event.
If you’re looking for other ways to remember and learn this month, consider checking out one of these titles about Canada’s wartime history:
- Till We Meet Again: A Canadian in the First World War by Brandon Marriott
- The Volunteers: How Halifax Women Won the Second World War by Lezlie Lowe
- The Cinderella Campaign: First Canadian Army and the Battles for the Channel Ports by Mark Zuelke
- Wartime: The First World War in a Canadian Town by Edward Butts
- A Soldier's Sketchbook: the Illustrated First World War Diary of R.H. Rabjohn by R.H Rabjohn
- Canada's Wars: An Illustrated History by Johnathan Webb