Cantley's 1889 Articles in The Echo of Cantley
Cantley 1889’s volunteers have written more than 150 monthly articles of local historical interest for publication in The Echo of Cantley, a non-profit bilingual organization that produces Cantley's only community newspaper.
The following article is reprinted here with permission from in The Echo of Cantley, Volume 37 no 5, November 2025.
Cantley’s New Veterans Monument – at last!
Margaret Phillips
Cantley now has a memorial to honour Cantley’s men and women who gave of themselves to serve Canada during times of war and peace.
On August 28, Cantley 1889’s Veterans Committee was excited to receive the good news! Veterans Affairs Canada approved a grant to assist us with eligible costs incurred for our Cantley veterans memorial and its engraved plaque. For this, we are most grateful. We also very much appreciate the enthusiastic support from the Municipality of Cantley, members of Cantley 1889 and its Veterans Committee, and the other generous volunteers who have helped along the way.
Until now, our municipality has not acknowledged its veterans. It has never had a plaque or any other memorial, not even a list of veterans displayed on any municipal property. Thankfully, Cantley’s two churches kept memorial rolls of World War 11 veterans which were framed for the walls of both the Ste-Élisabeth and, the now-demolished, St. Andrew’s churches.
Since our founding in 2010, Cantley1889’s goal has been to recognize Cantley’s veterans. Each November for 14 years, Mary Holmes has written well-researched, poignant articles about Cantley’s veterans and Remembrance Day for L’Écho de Cantley. As well, in 2017 Cantley 1889 purchased a wreath to honour Cantley’s veterans at the annual Remembrance Day ceremony at the Chelsea Pioneer Cemetery.
Last November, Richard Cohen, a veteran of both the Canadian and British Armies and member of Cantley 1889, agreed to chair our Veterans’ Committee specifically to work on our Veterans’ Monument Project. The committee decided that the most appropriate and symbolic memorial for our veterans should be created from a typical Cantley rock. After a long search, Richard discovered a lovely granite boulder in Denis Thom’s quarry. Its minerals of quartz (grayish, glassy), feldspar (white, pink), mica (shiny black) and hornblende (black) are all visible, but the boulder is predominantly pink, with black streaks of mica on its side. We agreed this rock was perfect for a Cantley memorial monument. On a cold May morning in the pouring rain, we met at the quarry with local stonemason, Robert Watt and his assistant Nick Appleby. They also thought the boulder was beautiful. Moreover, they volunteered their professional services to help advise us along the way and to install the plaque on the rock. We can’t thank them enough for their good advice and their expert workmanship. We also sincerely thank designer Scott Gibson, an RCAF veteran from Chelsea, who volunteered his professional skills to design and prepare our plaque’s inscription for engraving on a brass plaque. Richard and I prepared a project plan, a proposal for council to approve and a funding application for Veterans Affairs Canada. On July 2nd, Cantley Council passed a resolution unanimously supporting our proposal for the monument and offered to contribute $1000 and the help of its employees to install it on a site we all agreed on.
