I am Remembering today

When the first World War started he was a 34 year old family man.  He worked for the CPR railway Company as a conductor.  He had a wife and four small children, Ron, Mildred, Lester and baby Gertrude (my mother)
Then in 1917 or there abouts, the call for soldiers reached it's fingers out to Canada and Canada responded.
He found himself training in Scotland, in uniform, having his portrait taken.  Was this the picture he carried of his family?  The small portrait underneath is taken in France in 1918.
He was a handsome man, a family man, and he was my grandfather, my mother's father..James Johnston Greer, born 1880 in Miami, Manitoba, married to 19 year old Eva in 1905.
 What an upheaval it must have been for that little family, for my Grandmother, Eva, wondering if she would ever see him again.
But he did come home and he sent and brought souveniers.

This Crib cover, hand stitched with lace and silk ribbons was for my mum, the newest baby.

And here is the carriage cover he found.  It says souvenier of Belgium - hand painted silk and belgium lace with embroidered flowers and leaves.  An amazing piece of work.

I don't know if he managed to send these treasures home to Eva or if he brought them back with him.
I do know he was in the trenches of France and Belgium and was a victim of mustard gas.

These are three hand stitched post cards and a delicate silk handkerchief - souveniers of France he sent to his wife from France.  Did he wonder if he would come back?  He must have.  Somehow these wound up in my mother's wooden handkerchief box.  The stitching is exquisite.

He did come home, fathered a fifth child - Lorraine - and saw her married to a flyer, Jack Brechan and send him off to fight in the second World War, and watched his son Lester sign up for the Canadian Army.   
James passed away in 1948 of cancer  at 62, and family legend is the Mustard Gas ultimately killed him.  He is buried in the Burnsland Veteran's Cemetery in Calgary.