Centennial Poppies

Honoring the Soldiers who fought and lost their lives and rest in our area has been one of the purposes of the Wartime Friends Association since it was founded: Ravenna is one of the Cemeteries and most of the young men who rest there are Canadians. From the very beginning of our activity to today, we multiplied our efforts to remember and honor these brave Soldiers.

Just recently, though, we realized we had the need to add a new way to honor the Fallen Soldiers. We called it “Centennial Poppies”.

“Centennial Poppies” is meant to celebrate with 100th anniversary of a Canadian Fallen Soldier who rests in the Ravenna Commonwealth War Cemetery. After having reached out to his family (most often in Canada), we ask if they would like to send a message that we would read at the grave site. On the date, we pay homage to his grave site and lay Poppies by the headstone.

From July 2022 to the end of this year our Centennials are more than 20. We’ve already found their names and dates of birth. We are in touch with some of the families but we will try out our very best to reach out to all of them.

Being able to reach out to the families means indeed very much to us, It allows us to know so many aspects of the lives of our Centennials that we would otherwise never have known. Just one example can be one regarding Neville Drummond: at the very last minute his sister told us that he was born in 1923 and not in 1922. We promised her we will celebrate his 100th anniversary next year too!

We have the names of our 2023 Centennials. They are about 40. Research is already underway.

The energy to go on with this new program is given to us by the touching messages we receive from the families.

For us it is the best renewable energy source we can ever get!