The General Alexander Branch of the Royal Canadian Legion in Yorkton held its annual Decoration Day Service Wednesday, June 6, at the Yorkton Cemetery.
The event included a march from the old Fairview School property through the cemetery to the graves of Yorkton and area veterans of the two world wars and Korean War.
The service included the scattering of ashes which was explained by Rev. Richard Gibson.
The Scattering of the Ashes
This ceremony originated in Europe in 1936 at the unveiling of the Vimy Ridge Memorial.
This Canadian Legion, who at times was struggling for a place in the Canadian community, planned for a pilgrimage of Veterans to attend the unveiling of the Memorial which would be dedicated to the more than 50,000 Canadians who had lost their lives in World War I.
Four ocean liners carried over 6,000 veterans, their wives, children and parents of the fallen.
General Alexander Ross, Dominion President of the Canadian Legion at the time, was in charge of this undertaking.
The British Legion made a suggestion to him, and asked for his participation in the unveiling ceremony.
It had been their custom over the years, in connection with poppy sales, to sell small wooden crosses in memory of those fallen comrades from World War I. Those crosses would then be placed in the sacred ground surrounding Westminster
Abbey and removed after Armistice Day, and then destroyed by burning. The ashes from the crosses that had been burnt were placed in this small casket you see before you today. This very same casket was used as part of the Dedication Service in the unveiling of the Vimy Ridge Memorial in 1936. The ashes were scattered over the east face of the memorial where the names of the fallen comrades were inscribed.
Following the ceremony, the casket was then given to General Alexander Ross as a souvenir of the pilgrimage.
Upon receiving it, he did not know what to do with it, where to keep it, or what it could be used for at his Legion Branch, as the scattering of ashes had not yet caught on in Canada. Therefore it remained unused and forgotten about for many years.
It was not until after World War II that Comrade Lawrence Ball, at a meeting at the local Yorkton Branch, suggested to General Alexander Ross that instead of throwing Remembrance Day wreaths into the garbage, thy should be burnt and the ashes scattered in the Soldiers Plot at the Yorkton Cemetery.
General Ross was really delighted with this suggestion, especially as this little casket could be used in ceremonies for many years to come.
He presented the Yorkton Legion with the casket in a special service that was held on the Sunday following Remembrance Day in which it was used in the ceremony to scatter the ashes.
It was used for several years, but as the years went by, interest slowly waned, until the service that you are present at today became part of Decoration Day. This casket you see before you today, being used in this ceremony, is the original casket.
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