I was told that as part of this program, I was to research the life of a soldier who fought and died in the Netherlands to commemorate him at his grave. My search for a soldier from the Yukon who served in the Netherlands and died there turned up empty after I had talked to the local Royal Canadian Legion and looked at the local cenotaph. There certainly had been Yukoners who had fought in the Second World War and some are still alive, but as far as they could tell there were not any who had died in the Netherlands, and they could not even be certain that any Yukoners had fought there.

I felt disheartened, because not only could I not find a Yukoner who had fought in the Netherlands, but the date of the pilgrimage in late April was fast approaching. I went back to the list of the soldiers who now lay buried in the cemeteries of Groesbeek and Holten and saw that there were many soldiers from Canada who lay buried there. I then came across the name of a man who came from Prince Edward Island (PEI), Frederick Charles Cheverie.

I had stayed with family friends in Summerside in 2001 and I wrote them asking if they knew about my soldier. Believe it or not, they did. A friend of theirs, a man by the name of Elmer Phillips, another Islander, had been to Cheverie’s gravesite numerous times and was now currently researching his life. Although Mr. Phillips was very helpful in starting me off, as much as I tried, I could not seem to find any surviving family members. My search led me to a man named Ken Holmes, who helped me to not only trace his field unit but led me to his life story.

Frederick Charles Cheverie became more than the number G/43084 to me, and when I was able to put a name to a face - Frederick Cheverie came alive. Born at the turn of the century to Charles and Katherine Cheverie on September 28, 1906, in Souris, PEI, Frederick Cheverie's life was not the life that many Canadians experienced before the Second World War. The third of five children, one having died at birth, Frederick lost his mother, Katherine, to tuberculosis when he was two years old. Shortly afterwards, his father placed him in St. Vincent's Orphanage, moving himself to New Brunswick and later to the United States after he remarried an American. Frederick was later adopted by a family and went to live on a fox and potato farm in Queen's County. Although he lived a better life than he would have in an orphanage he was still neglected and somewhat ignored, watching for years as his siblings George, Victor, and Hilda led more fortunate lives. On August 11, 1930, at the age of twenty-four, he married his wife Mary-Louise in Abrahms Village, leaving Queen's County for Saint John, New Brunswick after two years of militia service.

During the Great Depression, newly-wed Frederick and his wife Mary-Louise struggled like many to get along. Working since age twelve, and having received no formal schooling, he was unable to read and write even until his dying day. Frederick bounced around as fisherman, a job he had in his late teens in Souris; a foundry worker; carpenter; and a steel and bridge builder, skills that would soon prove beneficial.

Inspired by a patriotic duty to serve his country, Frederick Cheverie enlisted in September, 1939 to serve in the war. Standing at 5’7, 150 lbs with hazel/green eyes, light brown hair and a fair complexion, Frederick joined the No. 14 Field Ambulance in Saint John. He eventually applied for a transfer to the Royal Canadian Engineers. Although having lost two fingers in an accident with an axe years earlier, he was determined not to let that prevent him from becoming a sapper and eventually joined the 9th Field Squadron after being described as a keen, quick learner by his superiors.

As the war waged on in Europe, Frederick Cheverie was in his late-thirties working first in posting for the 9th Field Squadron, attached to the 4th Armoured in England, after training in New Brunswick and Quebec. His wife, Mary-Louise had moved to Egmont Bay shortly after he went overseas. Records show that his unit entered the war near the Falaise Gap in France in August at the battle of Quesnay Wood, and fought its way to the Leopold Canal and Scheldt Estuary to liberate Belgium. Slightly wounded on April 6, 1945, and transferred to the 33rd Field Company on the 25th of April after hospitalization, Frederick Cheverie lived to see the end of the war in Europe in good health. Sadly however, he was killed carrying a mine eleven days after the war in Europe ended on May 19th, 1945. Buried in Meppen, Germany on May 20th, he was forty years old. It is important to remember these men here for more than what lies in these cemeteries today. They were young and starting life when they signed up. They thirsted for adventure, were patriotic and loved their lives. They are more than just a name and number. Frederick Cheverie lived a difficult life; he struggled like many Canadians through the Great Depression and, like many Canadians, he served his friends, country, and family until death. He was determined and brave, always on the front line of the battle risking his life to help, witnessing the full horror of war.

To me these Canadians who lie buried here are more than heroes; they are the reason why I can live my life with the freedoms I do today. In 1884, Colonel Joshua Chamberlain of the 20th Maine, a Union Regiment during the American Civil wrote:

It is not that these men are dead, but that they have so died…that they offered themselves willingly to death in a cause vital and dear to humanity; and what is more, a cause they comprehended as such, and looking at it, in all its bearings and its consequences, solemnly pledged to it all that they had and were… This comprehension of the cause- this intelligent devotion - this deliberate dedication of themselves to duty - these deaths suffered in testimony of their loyalty, faith and love, make these men worthy of honour today, and these deaths equal to the lauded deaths of martyrs. Not merely that the cause was worthy but that they were worthy… God grant to us that lesson and loyalty be not lost.

They gave their best for something held dearer than joy - something of good beyond their personal experience; the giving of which, in this world’s estimation, is such cost that it cannot be justified by your understanding but only by your overpowering faith.

We do not live for self… We are a part of a larger life, reaching before and after, judged not by deeds done in body but deeds done in soul. We wish to be remembered. Willing to die, we are not willing to be forgotten.”

Frederick Charles Cheverie loved to hunt and to watch hockey. He served his country proudly. Having earned numerous medals, he served from the very beginning of the War, to its very end. It is the least we can do for this man that today we pay homage to his sacrifice, and to that of millions of others who died so that we may live.

“No one knows the heartache or the pain borne by the one{s} {they} love {d} so well.”

As I stood over the grave of Frederick Cheverie on that cold spring afternoon of May 4th, 2005, sixty years minus fifteen days from the day he died, I could not help but think of not only his life that ended so abruptly, but the lives of the thousands of other Canadians who lie in their graves all across Europe. I had spent the last three months of my life trying to put the story behind not just his life but in a sense, one behind the thousands of Canadian war dead who were just like me. I had traveled halfway around the world to see him, and as I looked down at the grave of Sapper Frederick Cheverie, I felt as if I was looking down at the final resting place of one of my best friends. Holten War Cemetery is possibly one of the best final resting places I could have wished for for the 1300 Canadians who now lie there today. For a generation that gave so selflessly for a generation they had yet to meet, for a country from a different continent, and for a future they would help to make, we must not forget what they did those 60 years ago.

Amongst the veterans that I have talked to, I have heard numerous stories and all of them have been incredible, but one message has remained clear from the beginning, long before I even thought to ask them, that they wish it never happens to us. Having given themselves so freely to a cause greater than they could imagine, it is owed to them that we do not forget them. As a friend of mine said standing over her soldier’s grave, ‘We must not let them fall victim of two deaths,’ it is in this cause that as a delegate of this pilgrimage it is impossible to even consider not passing on the torch of remembrance to my family, friends, and the generations to come.

Lest we forget.

Conal Slobodin was born in Kingston, Ontario. He lived in Whitehorse, Yukon in 2005. His interests include history, politics and basketball. Conal loves to travel, and has visited Japan, Belgium, France, England, the U.S. and has been across Canada. He enjoyed a school trip to the battlefields of the First and Second World Wars. Conal graciously gave his permission to have his research to be reproduced here.

Copyright
Waldron H. Leard