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Cape Bretoners in World War One: In Their Own Words launched in Port Hood

-by John Gillis

“It (World War One) was just about all a man could stand in the way of hardships,” said veteran Harrison Livingstone.

Thursday evening, August 28th was a special occasion in Port Hood at the Chestico Museum with the western Cape Breton launch of a new publication from Breton Books.

The evening featured an appearance by author, editor, publisher and Order of Canada recipient Ron Caplan, who launched the latest publication of Breton Books – Cape Bretoners in World War One: In Their Own Words.  Caplan spoke eloquently and passionately about his interest in the subject and the book and was available for questions and to sign copies of the book after his presentation.

The book features rare interviews with survivors of World War One as well as diary entries, letters and news accounts of Cape Breton’s participation in the conflict.

Caplan had some help from The Chestico Museum and John Gillies in researching some of the Inverness County entries in the book.

According to the Chestico Museum, “among the veterans of local interest included in the book are Thomas Langley, Port Hawkesbury; Gwen LeFort, Cheticamp; Hilda MacDonald,  Glendyer; Angus J. MacDonell, Port Hood; John Angus MacNeil, Inverness; Father Donald MacPherson, parish priest in Port Hood from 1919 until 1957; Dan E. MacQuarrie, Middle River; James Murphy, Margaree; and Perley Smith, Port Hood Island.”

At the core of the new book, In Their Own Words, are rare interviews and conversations with survivors of World War One.  There are also stories, letters, photographs and vivid news accounts of Cape Breton’'s participation.

Another major component to the book is comprised of accounts from many of the nurses who served in that “war to end all wars.”

Caplan thanked the Chestico Museum and all the families who helped to make the book possible.

Caplan recalled his own memories from the early interviews with the World War One veterans.  The wife of one of those veterans told Caplan that her husband would “jump up in the middle of the night and say that someone was coming after him, he could hear their horses....his nerves were absolutely gone.”

Caplan also recalled William A. “Wild Bill” Livingstone who had some attraction to the fighting life but who noted as well “a tremendous sympathy for the civilization – the homes and the towns – he is seeing destroyed, and for the boys who are maimed and who died.”  Livingstone writes: “I can never look on these cemeteries without emotion, for beneath them lie the best of manhood of a young nation.”

Caplan recalled women writing of the difficulty of farming in Cape Breton given so many of the young men were off to war, and he recalled veteran John Angus MacNeil of Inverness talking about the difficulty of finding work in Cape Breton upon returning from the conflict.

In conclusion, Caplan had these words to say: “Some people say that most soldiers came home so disgusted by what they had seen that they would rarely talk about the Great War.  That may be true.  And it may also be true that we who might have listened were too busy – or perhaps even fearful regarding what we might hear – to encourage them to talk to us about it.  Whatever the reason, I am grateful that my daily work creating Cape Breton’s Magazine took me to those men and women and that they were willing to talk.  That’s about 30 years ago.  I thanked them then and, if they were living, I would thank them now.  I hope you’ll find this book worthy of the trust these people placed in me,” Caplan concluded.

 


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