The Canadian Letters & Images Project
On the drive home today, CBC Radio had a Remembrance Day special on The Canadian Letters & Images Project.
From Wikipedia:
The Canadian Letters and Images Project is an online archive of the collective war experience of Canada, from any war, as told through contemporary letters and images. The project was started in August 2000 by the Department of History at Vancouver Island University. In November 2003 the History Department at the University of Western Ontario joined the project.?The objective of the project is to create a permanent online archive of Canada’s wartime correspondence, photographs, and other personal materials, from the battlefront and from the home-front. The project does not edit correspondence or select portions of collections. The materials submitted are scanned and returned to the submitter.
The representative from the Canadian Letters & Images Project was asked to read an example letter for the radio program listeners. He chose the following poem, written by Ted (Edward) Gordon Coke for his infant daughter (Baby Sharon) whom Ted left behind to fight in WWII and, unfortunately, never saw again as he died protecting our freedom.
Baby Sharon,
I have seen the laughter shine in your baby eyes;
I have held your tiny hands, and heard your first faint cries.
I have known the dear delight of watching day by day
the progress of your stumbling steps, but now I’m far away.I am not there to see you grow, that happy time has passed.
A stranger I shall be to you, when I come home at last.
But it is worth the sacrifice and all the agony
to know that you will live in peace, and be forever free.Your Dad,
Ted Richards
Lest we forget…