Manitoba lake to be named after soldier who died in First World War

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This article was published 14/01/2016 (3762 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Manitoba geographic feature will be named today in honour of a soldier from Boissevain whose bones were found a decade ago by a teenager digging in his family’s backyard in northern France.

Pte. Sidney Halliday is the first in a program to commemorate those killed in the First World War by giving their names to land forms. The province ran a similar program naming geographic features after those who died in the Second World War, but has exhausted its list of 4,206 names.

The names of veterans are being applied to lakes, islands, bays, rivers, creeks, hills and even some eskers (glacier-made ridges). There are more than 90,000 lakes in Manitoba at least 1.6 kilometres in diameter.

A lake in Duck Mountain Provincial Park will be named in Halliday’s honour. Jim Halliday, Halliday’s nephew, and his wife, Patricia, who farm near Boissevain, will be at the news conference for the commemoration.

Halliday’s remains were only identified a little more than a year ago. A child in Hallu, France, was digging around his backyard because frost kept heaving shell casings to the surface, explained nephew Jim.

The teen knew it had been a battlefield in the First World War. He started digging in one place and turned up some human bones. The remains of eight soldiers were eventually excavated.

It was determined the eight soldiers must have been Winnipeg Grenadiers who died in the 1918 Battle of Amiens in France. The battle was the opening phase of the Allied offensive that ultimately ended the First World War.

But only four of the soldiers could be identified. Canadian Forces were in touch with the Halliday family because it was known their uncle was a Grenadier, but all efforts to identify him as one of the eight failed.

“I had contact with a lady in forensics. She said they couldn’t go any further” with the identification process, said Jim.

“I knew from stories Mother had told us that Sidney had a girlfriend, and they had exchanged rings before he went overseas. So I asked if they had any rings,” Jim recalled.

“She said they had two, but they couldn’t tell anything from them. But she said they had a locket that had a piece of cardboard inside separating two locks of hair, and on the cardboard was the name L. Walmsley.”

Bingo. Sidney’s girlfriend was named Lizzie Walmsley. “Had it not been for that locket, that was pretty well 100 years old, (Sidney) would have been buried with the unknown soldiers. It’s remarkable,” said Jim, 72.

Halliday was 22 when he died. He had mentioned Lizzie in his military will and left her $10. He is now buried in a British war cemetery in Caix, France.

The family will be bringing the locket, fully restored by the Canadian Forces, to the announcement. “It’s indeed a great honour,” Jim said.

Most geographical features being named are too small to make it onto a road map, or even have a provincial sign, although some families make up their own signs. However, the names will appear on more detailed maps, and hopefully on Google Maps, said Des Kappel, who is in charge of geographical names with the province.

About 7,000 Manitobans died in the First World War, but the province only has names for 1,092 of them in its archives, said Kappel. Those known casualties in the First World War will be commemorated with their names on land features.

But the province is also asking families to check to see whether a relative from the First World War is missing from the list. If so, the families should notify the province so it can reconstruct its list. The website is: http://www.gov.mb.ca/chc/archives/ww1_resources/ww1_soldier_index.html.

“Part of this is to honour people on the list but we’re also looking for people to contact us and advise us of additional names,” Kappel said.

The province had previously named 51 land features after First World War vets on an ad hoc basis, as well as 37 from the Korean War, seven from the Afghanistan War and one who died while peacekeeping with the United Nations.

bill.redekop@freepress.mb.ca