Service Above Self: Welcome to our new monthly column on all things Rotary

By MH Rotary Club on November 30, 2023.

The Rotary Club of Medicine Hat has been active in the community for more than a century. We have raised funds for many worthwhile projects locally and internationally. The idea has been so engaging over the years that we have sponsored several sister clubs, and today there are four Rotary Clubs locally.

Our motto, “Service Above Self,” has meant we have undertaken most of the work quietly and behind the scenes. While we still don’t want to be boastful, the incredible expansion of news outlets has meant we recognize the need to make our story in Medicine Hat better known.

We are grateful to the Medicine Hat News for providing this space once a month for us to inform you about what we have been doing and the impact our activities have had. One of our Club’s first projects was the completion of the Cenotaph following the First World War, and recently many of you took time to visit it and to pay your respects. We made inquiries about the meaning of the monument and received the following from Wes Krause, the curator of the South Alberta Light Horse Museum:

Medicine Hat Cenotaph

On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month the guns fell silent on the battlefields of Belgium and France and peace was once again restored to the world. There was much rejoicing as “Our Boys” were coming home after four years of horrible conflict. Throughout the nation, parades were held and dinners sponsored. Welcome Home festivals and hundreds of celebrations across Canada sounded the triumph of the end of the Great War. In the following years monuments were erected recording soldiers who served and were lost in times of conflict.

The construction of the Medicine Hat Cenotaph was started in 1920 and eventually completed in 1922. Initially the monument was intended to honour local First World War soldiers, though over time and subsequent conflicts the Cenotaph had sections added for soldiers of the Second World War, Korea and lastly Afghanistan. What started as 250 grew to more than 310, most of whom would be familiar to you as you read them.

You will see Beauchame, Bennett, Bullivant, Hawthorne and our Victoria Cross winner J.P. Robertson. A Second World War section was added with names such as Perrin, Stickel and Gendron, who the tank in Riverside Memorial Park is named after, the Palfenier brothers and Gendron. Then a Korean War section and a short section to the United Nations and NATO service, which included Stephen Stock.

Each name has a unique story and represents fathers, sons, brothers, daughters and uncles.

It is through Remembrance Day Services on Nov. 11 at the Cenotaph that the citizens of Medicine Hat can come out and pay homage to those who served and died. A scant few minutes of silence is all they get for a lifetime of silence.

We will remember them and we will thank them!

Our next column will focus on an activity we have done for decades – the Christmas Kettles. Please send your memories and stories about this Holiday tradition to mhrotary@gmail.com.

This column was contributed by members of the Medicine Hat Rotary Club

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