A Calgary man’s passion to honour past family members who served their country turned up more than he ever could’ve imagined.
It all started about five years ago for Frank Clifford, 77, who had found an old family photo of his grandfather and his son when they served in the First World War.
And now after hundreds of hours of research, Clifford has a field of crosses set up every November honouring 120 descendants of his and his wife’s family who have served in wars dating back 200 years.
“I started with 30 relatives. I went back and I started with the immediate family because I knew uncles who had served and my dad and my grandfather,” said Clifford. “The next thing I knew, I was finding a couple more here and a couple more there.
“It’s a journey that I’ve really enjoyed searching out all these cousins. I call them cousins. In my (research), I’ve only found three women that served: one was an auntie that I knew quite well, the other two are family ancestors. They’re the hardest to find.”
And now every year, Clifford sets up rows of crosses on a patch of grass near Bow Trail and 31st St. S.W. with information of each descendant.
“When you read the story of some of these people being 19, 20 years old and ending their life like that, it becomes an emotional tour,” he said. “It really affects me emotionally.”
He couldn’t do it without a little bit of help, though. A close friend of Clifford’s, Betty Judge, who’s just shy of her 90s, has been providing him assistance all the way from Australia for years now.
Their research has turned up some incredible stories and history. Clifford’s oldest cross dates all the way back to the War of 1812, when four relatives on his wife’s grandmother’s side served for the British.
But one of the most memorable was the story of a family member who served in the First World War.
“He was always AWOL and did all of the goofy things a young fella would do at the age of 20. But when he went into battle, on one particular case, he took out a pillbox or machine-gun and himself ended up being KIA,” he said of the family member who received posthumous medals for his service from Belgium. “If you looked at his record as a soldier being very disciplined, he wasn’t. But when it came down to the hard knocks, he was there to do his job the best he could and paid for it.”
On Twitter: @zjlaing
Copyright Postmedia Network Inc., 2019
