Sign project planned to remember Sarnia’s fallen soldiers

Jane Hudson had no idea she lived in the former home of one of Sarnia’s fallen soldiers.

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The Sarnia woman said she’d found, amid renovations, old newspapers, parking meters, and other items showing her 1890s-built Maria Street home’s history, but never anything linked to Bill Cameron.

The Royal Canadian Air Force pilot was 22 when he was killed Sept. 1, 1943, during a bombing raid on Berlin, according to research from Sarnia’s Tom Slater.

Cameron steadied his Halifax bomber after it was hit, allowing three crew members to escape and parachute to safety. Cameron died in the crash.

Bev Scharf, mid-upper gunner in Cameron’s crew, would tell Cameron’s parents of their son’s heroism in 1945, visiting the house where Hudson has lived since 1987.

“I am very honored that this man was here,” Hudson said of Cameron.

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Hers is one of about 160 properties in the city to be dotted with boulevard signs in memory of Sarnia’s fallen Nov. 1 to 12.

Called the Sarnia War Remembrance Sign Project, and inspired by similar initiatives in places like Toronto and Ottawa, it puts faces to names, and names to houses where fallen soldiers in the city once lived, said Tom St. Amand, among the researchers, along with Slater, involved in the project.

“It’s just amazing to see the sacrifices that these guys and their families made,” St. Amand said, adding “there are several short streets where they have a number of soldiers who fell in action who lived there.

“Sarnia really wasn’t that big, even at the end” of the Second World War.

Doug Woods, father of singer-songwriter Donovan Woods, pitched the idea after visiting his son in Toronto and seeing a similar remembrance project there.

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Doing something like it in Sarnia is significant because the sacrifices soldiers made need to be remembered, he said.

“We certainly don’t want to see it occur again, but the Second World War had to happen, and we should be pretty proud of our soldiers that reacted as well as they did,” he said.

He approached St. Amand, with whom he curls, and St. Amand brought to Slater.

Both Toms have been involved in local history projects in the community, and had already amassed research on local soldiers.

Using it, they worked to match names to addresses, St. Amand said.

“We couldn’t find every soldier to be honest,” he said.

“We found 242 and there are probably more out there.”

Hopes are to expand the project next year if they can, he said.

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QR codes on the signs link to sarniaswarfallenwheretheycalledhome.ca, with biographies and a map showing locations of the soldiers’ former homes.

The homes where 80 or so of the fallen soldiers lived no longer exist, St. Amand said, noting they’ve been replaced by parking lots or businesses.

Those soldiers, instead, will be honored with signs arranged in Centennial Park, near the Royal Canadian Legion branch, to simulate a military cemetery, he said.

“For the number of signs that we have, Veterans Park just isn’t big enough to have the signs with the huge crowd that is going to be there on Remembrance Day,” he said.

Donors have covered the estimated $5,000 to $6,000 in expenses, mostly related to printing costs, Woods said.

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Sarnia city council in June approved putting the signs on city property, and plans are to send homeowners letters in October explaining the project and hoping they’ll welcome the signs on their boulevards, St. Amand said.

Sheila Gormley said she’ll be among them.

Her Essex Street house was the home of Douglas and Ross Pole, both RCAF members killed in the Second World War.

Gormley said she’s lived at her address since 1970, and found out about her history, as a home to fallen soldiers, about 20 years ago.

“I think it’s very important that people realize the sacrifice of these people,” she said.

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