Family members from as far as Vancouver Island and Edmonton made their way to Sudbury for a special ceremony July 23.
A quilt -- large enough to wrap around someone comfortably -- was held up before the eyes of Second World War veteran Alfred Cyr of Sudbury. As two people held the corners of the blanket, the 99-year-old Sudbury man gazed at the intricate red, black and white stitching arranged in patterns inspired by Indigenous art.
Cyr is one of dozens of Canadian veterans to have their military service commemorated with a Quilt of Valour. Since 2006, the Canadian Quilts of Valour initiative has presented nearly 16,000 quilts to Canadian veterans.
With pandemic restrictions easing, dozens of Cyr’s family and friends gathered on the patio of Canadian Legion Branch 76 in Minnow Lake for the ceremony.
After more than a year of isolation, the man of the hour beamed to be reunited with his family, smiling in particular as he watched his young great granddaughter running around the crowd of loved ones and Legion representatives.
Cyr became reflective when asked about his war service.
A driver and tank driver, Cyr was 18 when he started his service during the hard-fought Invasion of Italy.
The then teenager saw action in the heavy urban battles of Messina on the island of Sicily and Ortona on the Italian mainland.
Trained as a tank driver, the young private’s heavy foot saw him become the favourite driver of an officer.
“They were firing across the streets of Messina (Italy),” Cyr said. “Then an officer (a captain) came by and said ‘I need a driver,’ and I said, ‘That’s me.’ I love to drive. I was a fast driver and he liked that.”
The city of Messina suffered heavy damage during air bombardments of 1943 as Allied forces aimed to overtake Sicily and use it to stage their invasion of the Italian peninsula. Positioned on the Strait of Messina which separates Sicily from the mainland, the city had strategic importance for the Allies. Taking it would cut off the flow of troops and supplies for Axis forces on the mainland. The Allies dropped around 6,500 tons of bombs on the city in the span of a few months, destroying a third of the city.
Cyr also served in another important Allied campaign, the Battle of Ortona.
From the Canadian Encyclopedia: “On 20 December, the Loyal Edmonton Regiment and Seaforth Highlanders of Canada, supported by tanks from the Three Rivers Regiment, became embroiled in vicious house-to-house fighting in Ortona with the German 1st Parachute Division. Finding that advancing along the streets was impossible, the Canadians blasted their way through the interlinked walls of the town’s buildings — a technique called mouse-holing.
“There was no pause in the fighting for Christmas Day, but the Seaforth’s quartermaster and headquarters staff organized a sumptuous dinner. One by one, Seaforth companies withdrew to a church on Ortona’s outskirts, were served dinner, and then returned to battle. The Edmontons and most tankers had no such reprieve.
“Not until the night of 28 December did the Battle of Ortona end with a German withdrawal. The December fighting cost 2,605 Canadian casualties, including 502 killed. There were also 3,956 evacuations for battle exhaustion and 1,617 for sickness, out of a total Canadian strength at the beginning of December of about 20,000. The 1st Canadian Infantry Division, however, had mauled two German divisions and achieved its objective.”
Cyr’s daughter, Gwen, told Sudbury.com it took her father 40 years to talk about his time at war.
“When he came back he went to a recovery hospital for veterans of the war because of shell shock,” she said. “While he was there, he underwent some experimental treatment for shell shock. So that also affected him.
One aspect of his war service was particularly troubling for her father, Gwen said.
“He had to do things like pick up bodies and bury them. And then when he would find a grave that had no identification on it, he would actually dig up the grave and find the identification so the families could be notified of what happened to their loved ones,” she said. “So he had to do some pretty hard things.”
After the war, Cyr went on to become a loving father to seven children. He was married for 57 years. His wife, Loretta, passed away in 2012. Cyr is also predeceased by one son, who also served in the military.
For Gwen, the Quilt of Valour program and the July 23 ceremony meant a lot to her and to her family.
“It means his service and his sacrifice is being acknowledged. It means that people care what still happens to veterans,” she said. “To me it’s a warm, comforting, nice thing, near the end of his life.”
This ceremony is a key part of the Quilts of Valour program, which as an organization is dedicated to honouring veterans for their service by providing comfort through a handcrafted quilt, said Bonnie Leonard, the Quilt of Valour representative who was on hand to present Cyr’s quilt.
She said love is stitched into each quilt.
“There’s 65 hours of quilting in each quilt and the fabric is all donated by those of us who sew. And the quilting services are also donated,” Leonard said. “So there are many hours spent stitching by people and that’s where we stitch the love into each quilt.”
Leonard started with the Quilts of Valour as a quilter, but now delivers and presents veterans with the quilts. Any veteran who has been injured during their service to Canada can be nominated to receive a quilt, while surviving veterans of the Second World War automatically qualify.
“And then it’s our job to make the quilts and deliver them,” Leonard said, adding upwards of four quilts a week are delivered. “There’s no veteran that came back from World War II that didn’t pay a price.”
To learn more about Quilts of Valour, visit their website here, where you can nominate a veteran to receive a quilt.
