Reston and Area Residents at War

Remembrance week gives us an opportunity to think back about the veterans that chose to leave the streets and farms of our community to fight overseas.  In the past, emphasis has been placed on those who did not return but with the passage of time and programs like No Stone Left Alone  the soldiers who survived and came home are remembered. 

The pride of Reston! Picture below is of eleven young men standing in front of the train station on their way to World War Two.  Identified men are in the front row starting on the left are John Milliken, Wilf Ellis, ?, Jim Milliken.  Other names associated with the picture are Bill Bulloch, Lew Watt, Don Bulloch, Neuf Olenick, Dave Zarn, Reg Low, George Cheyne and Tom Low but I don’t know which is which.  Please send me a message at ssimms@escape.ca if you can help with this. I see a few grins and a few grimaces and notice the variety of cap badges which denote the branch the men were returning to join. 

Picture courtesy of Wendy (Milliken) Bulloch

Past blog posts list the information behind the names on the Reston Cenotaph from the First World War here and Second World War here . Two of those men from WW2 who made the ultimate sacrifice are in the hometown picture below.  Andrew Glenn Caldwell and Kenneth Cameron McMurchy .  So sad to think this was likely their last visit home and how the others carried the memories with them of those days.

Thanks to Kay and Bonnie Guthrie for sharing this photo. 

James Burton (Burt) Pierce is identified on the photo below as the man on the far right. I wonder if the other soldiers are buddies from Reston or those he met on duty.  Burt was well known in the Reston area for having the G.S. Munro Company Ltd Store on Main street for many years after he returned from the war until selling it in 1977.  He and his wife Alice are also remembered for their philanthropy, leaving generous bequests to several local places. 

From John and Vera Olenick photo collection

Access to the back issues of the Reston Recorder here allows for some great insight of Reston and area  during both wars by just choosing a date and reading.  The district correspondents from Hillview, Belses, Kelvindale, Braeside, Huston and so many more kept readers up to date on the young people overseas.  Letters home from the boys (and girls) were printed along with reports of wounded missing and killed.  Recorder editor and publisher Russell Manning was serving in the Air Force and he was a strong booster for memorial projects in the area such as the Reston Memorial Theatre after the war as well.   

 

A stanza from the poem For the Fallen by Laurence Binyon                                                                                                                                 They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.


Source: The London Times (1914)