Stumbling Onto a Family Tragedy

I work at a public library, where part of my job consists of presenting library programs to local students.  Last year our library system began to present a program called "Lest We Forget", which was developed by Library and Archives Canada (LAC for short) as a way to introduce high school students to primary research around Canada's involvement in the two World Wars.  It was designed by a high school teacher who actually took his classes to the National Archives on overnight field trips and had them research the fates of soldiers from their own school. Having a real person to research and connect with increased the interest of his students, and he and the LAC created an amazing website with a number of actual war records on it so that students could do cenotaph  research from outside Ottawa.

LAC asked local libraries to teach high school students how to use this website and how to interpret military records, and for demonstration purposes a presentation was created using the lives of two soldiers and friends as research examples.

Here's what I found when I looked it over:

You can't read the fine print, but the young man on the left, whose nickname is "Ford",  is actually  named William Rutherford Dunlop.  Wait a minute--that name sounds suspiciously familiar!  He is the son of Helen Paton Rutherford and William MacEwan Dunlop, and the grandson of William Rutherford Sr.  Here are some of the records of his life and death in World War I, or "The Great War", as they unfolded before me during my review of the presentation.  Now of the 619,636 soldiers who fought for Canada during that war, what are the chances that a cousin would just show up out of the blue like that?

I learned that William registered with his friend Eric May (shown at the right), who attended high school as well as Queen's University with William (their army enrollment numbers are consecutive). April 3, 1917 was the day they enrolled.

William and Eric enrolled as gunners in the 72 Queen's Battery  but were transferred to the 48th Howitzer Battery while in France.

William died at the Battle of the Canal du Nord, September 27, 1918.  Eric died three weeks before William, and William may even have been there when his friend was wounded (Eric died of those wounds later in hospital).

But the story, unexpectedly as it found me,  doesn't end here--a quick internet search revealed that William's family and friends set up a scholarship to Queen's University in his memory, which is available to this day (it is called the William Rutherford Dunlop Entrance Scholarship and is awarded yearly to a student from Ottawa).  The Queen's archives has some correspondence related to the foundation of this scholarship.

 

So Helen's husband passed away as she was mourning the death of her child.  What a grief-stricken time that must have been for her.   

The Saint Andrew's Presbyterian Church has this commemoration on their website:

GUNNER WILLIAM RUTHERFORD (FORD) DUNLOP, Canadian Field Artillery, 2nd Brigade, was "an active worker in St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church", and the only son of William and Helen Dunlop, 15 Patterson Ave., Ottawa. While at Lisgar Collegiate, Ford excelled at studies, sports and debates. At Queens University, he was in the Officers Training Corps, on the debating team and the executive of the Arts Society, and headed towards a law degree. At the end of his freshman year in 1917, he enlisted in the 72nd Queens Battery. In France he transferred to the 48th Howitzer Battery. Aged 20, Gunner Dunlop was killed in action at Cambrai on Sept. 27, 1918. In his memory, the William Rutherford Dunlop Entrance Scholarship is awarded annually for general proficiency by Queens to a student from an Ottawa Secondary School. Gunner Dunlop is remembered on St. Andrew's Sunday School plaque; he is buried at Saint Les Marquion British Cemetery, about 12 km. northwest of Cambrai, France.

And William's name is listed in the Book of Remembrance in the Peace Tower at Parliament Hill:

Rest in peace, William.