The Lost Letters of John Maccrae

who was a descendant of Thomas, and later a The Lost Letters of federal civil servant in Ottawa. "Jack" was none other than Lt-Col- John John MacCrae McCrae (1872-1918) Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps, a soldier and surgeon but much more famous as the author of the by Allan Levine haunting poem In Flanders Fields. When McCrae wrote to his beloved Laura, In the spring of 1900, a letter arrived at he had embarked with the Canadian forces Treadwell, just up the lower Ottawa River for the Boer War. from the village of L'Orignal. The first group of letters, written in the The letter, marked Troopship Laurentian, early days of McCrae's career, begin July 18, Jan. 20, 1900. 9 p.m. read: 1893, when he is training as an artilleryman at Royal Military College in Kingston: My dear Laura: Just ready to sail. This [letter] goes by the "...I have a manservant .. Quite a nobby pilot and is just a last word to wish you place it is, in fact .. My windows look right goodbye. Perhaps by the time you see me out across the bay, and are just near the back, you will have squared up the account water's edge; there is a good deal of shipping with the man whom you told me about. If so, at present in the port; and the river looks best of luck-. but I dare say I shall come back very pretty, Yours, Jack' Lt-Col. John McCrae. and find the same old chum. Goodbye and forgive the brevity. It looks The letters continue from Guelph, in August, Thanks to the perseverance of Hugh as if it would be wild outside the harbour where McCrae was at the Ontario tonight; however it is all in a day's work MacMillan, one of the founders of the Agricultural College. SSF, valuable letters from John Bye bye, On Oct. 3, from Toronto, where he had a Your old chum, Jack McCrae have been recovered and fellowship at the university; he wrote: returned to his hometown of Guelph. After surfacing in the early 1990s in New "...Rugby football is in full swing now, in Jersey, roughly a dozen affectionate letters consequence for which I have a black eye, we have had no fighting yet but a lot of very from Jack to Laura are back in Canada. and a sore thumb which does not permit very hard work. The letters give a tiny but invaluable good penmanship on my part.. Well Laura be Yours, Jack" snapshot of life among the privileged classes sure you write before a very long time a century ago. But who was "Laura"? And elapses. I know you may think I require The very last of his known letters to Laura who was "Jack"? And why were the letters punishment, but don’. Kains is dated Oct. 9, 1900, and written from returned? Yours very sincerely, Jack" South Africa: Our story begins in the 19th century with Thomas Kains, who settled in Canada and McCrae’s final letter in the first series was "My dear Laura, I have not written for, quite married into the MacMillan clan. dated Feb. 8, 1895, in Toronto: a while... it is so hard to keep one's Enter the"Paper Sleuth”, Dr. Hugh R. correspondence up to the mark. At present MacMillan formerly of Guelph, now of' "...I have been living very quietly this term, we.are setting in camp here - a miserable Ottawa. Jack's letter is part of a collection of very little gaiety of any kind ... I know ,there place full of dust and dirt- hot like a furnace. letters, postcards and other items found by is nothing in this letter to tempt you to write Since leaving Pretoria we have been on two MacMillan who is well known among again. I know, however, that if I could tell marches .. We have been in action twice historians and archivists for tracking and you the piece of news I got today just before I since coming here. Yesterday afternoon was locating valuable documents for the got your letter, you would not feel so bitter the latter of the two: we fired about 40 shells Ontario Archives and other public against . me as perhaps you do...My only into Brother Boer, who made tracks over the institutions. reason for saying anything about it, is that hills. We did not lose any men. I have been Over several decades of persistent research perhaps if you knew of it you would not think in eleven scraps now of various size and of into his own family history, he discovered quite so badly of your ... chum. various importance. With very best wishes that Thomas Kains had married Mary Yours, Jack” old chum ... believe me! McMillan (variant spelling noted), Hugh’s Yours very fondly, Jack" ancestor. We do not have another of Jack's letters until MacMillan further identified Thomas his debarkation for the Boer War. He writes McCrae never married, and the other man Kains’ descendent Archie and in doing so, from Kenhardt, in Cape Colony (and a long in the abbreviated note is not easily discovered the letters between Jack and distance northeast of Capetown) on April 4, identified. McCrae, later a doctor with the Laura. 1900: Canadian Expeditionary Force, succumbed to Searching Kains-MacMillan connections, pneumonia in January1918 in Boulogne, MacMillan located another descendent, Joan "...We are camped here for a few days at the France, in the final year of the First World Ritchie of New Jersey who was in possession end of a march of 230 miles through the War. His short poem In Flanders Fields, of the letters between Laura and Jack. worst country you can dream of … we have first published in Punch, is an indelible It is through Ritchie’s generosity that these had a good many of our men sick chiefly reminder of the brutality and horror of trench papers came to the John McCrae House in from bad water. Personally, I have been in warfare. ! Guelph. excellent shape ... on the while, it is a great "Laura", the recipient of the letter, was life... we have taken quite a lot of prisoners... (Allan E Levine is a librarian and historian Laura Kains (1873-1949). Archie's sister, living in Ottawa.) The Scots Canadian 3 .

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