On a beautiful sunny day in June, June 15th 2024 to be exact, students at R. Tait McKenzie Public School attended the Rededication Ceremony at the Almonte Cenotaph where Private George B. Monterville’s name is now remembered.

Do they really understand the magnitude of what they did? Can we even understand that magnitude? Can you look back to the year you attended school as a grade 6 student? Did you correct a hundred year-old historic wrong as the learning you did that year?

More importantly, do they care? Do they care about this Nation’s, about Canada’s, history? There is no doubt. So, then, why do they care? They care because they learned about a life, a life that once walked the sidewalks of the town they live in – maybe even where Main St. West becomes Almonte St.; maybe even further down the road to Auld Kirk Cemetery visiting a friend or relative before he shipped off to Europe and the First World War. That life became a catalyst for learning about the past. A past that now lives in these students minds and hearts.

History is a living space: it is full of life, and when the human experience of the past is made central for those in the present learning the stories of those people, a connection is forged that does not diminish over time.

As you’ll hear, such connection with the people of the past is fundamental to purpose; what follows purpose like this shapes lives. And so, history, the past, shapes the present though story. In this case, a story of justice, for Private Monterville, a man who once was lost, and now is found; a story of the children of Almonte, Ontario who made it their duty to bring the past to the present for a fellow countryman and citizen who time forgot.

Student Video Story in English: https://youtu.be/piTC3kTxAJ4?si=G49W1bRskabhE1S-

Student Video Story in French: https://youtu.be/pY0SQP8pyn0?si=gVPh0Yf57oTeixS7

CBC Radio Interview: https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-100-ottawa-morning/clip/16074924-almonte-cenotaph-rededication

CTV News Feature: https://www.ctvnews.ca/ottawa/article/forgotten-soldiers-name-added-to-almonte-ont-cenotaph-thanks-to-grade-6-class/