Submitted by Ruby Smith March 31, 2022, VOL. 3 ISSUE 16
Pat (Patricia) Street was born in Coe Hill Ontario. After graduating from high school, she joined the Air Force and worked in the Communications department as a radio and teletype operator from 1955 to 1958. Pat was inspired to join the military because of her grandfather, Thomas Byrne, who was awarded a Victoria Cross for valour. Pat lays a wreath at Fort Erie’s Cenotaph on November 11th every year in honour of her veteran grandfather.
In 1977 Pat moved to Fort Erie and as she says, “I’ve been here ever since”. She has been an active member of Royal Canadian Legion Branch 71 for over forty years, has held positions on the executive and was voted in as president four times. For years, Pat has acted as curator of the Legion’s memorabilia, artifacts, and archive collections.
Over the years Pat has amassed Fort Erie’s WW1 and WW2 military history and other information filed in binders. When Heritage Arts in 2012 showcased Fort Erie and the War of 1812 in the Leisureplex banquet room for three days, we displayed those binders. One town worker said that he came to work early so that he could read them because he found the content about WW1 and WW2 so informative.
On another occasion, Heritage Arts provided a showcase display on “Remembrance” at the Centennial Library, using Pat’s artifacts. Pat has taken the responsibility for the placement of poppies on Veteran’s tombstones and for placing Canadian flags in our cemeteries every November 11th, Remembrance Day. She is dedicated to the Legion and to the care of veterans.
Pat believes that people think of veterans as men and not women, yet women have done their part in every war. She states that she is not the only female veteran member of Fort Erie Branch 71. There are six others: Joy Russell, Jennifer Davis, Wendy Lou Gallant, Lisa Smid, Margaret Watters, Margaret Kiefer, and Carole Livingston. We thank Pat and these WOMEN VETERANS for their service.
In 2014, Heritage Arts celebrated the War of 1812 by honouring 42 Fort Erie veterans who fought in the War of 1812. We registered them with the Canada Graveside Project, had a ceremony and placed a granite plaque on each tombstone. Researching these militia took us 2 years and we began our search with Pat’s files from St. Paul’s Church on early veteran gravesites.
To celebrate and honour these 42 veterans, we rang the bell located in Branch 71 on Christmas Eve 2014. The Treaty of Ghent ending the War of 1812 was signed in Belgium on December 24th between 4:00 and 6:00 pm. We have rung that Bell for PEACE and REMEMBRANCE yearly. Our Mayor, Wayne Redekop, has participated in every December 24th bell ringing ceremony. Pat Street has been steadfast in her support of our world movement of bell ringing for the Peace and Remembrance Project. The Bell has its own unique history. Join us at Branch71 at 4:00 pm, December 24, 2022.
In 1949 and 1950, Marguerite Raymond, town historian, had her stories of local history published in the Times Review. One story under the title of Forgotten Landmarks published June 8, 1950, states, “The little old schoolhouse on John Street was built about a decade after the incorporation o the village and many a later business or professional man of the town once raced down the hill to the call of its clanging bell, so Edward Seaton once said. This bell has quite a history, finding a second home when the Douglas school was built to replace the old school, then upon the dome of the new Town Hall on Queen Street, where it sent out its alarms for fire and other emergencies and rang out the end of the war in 1918. During the second world war, when a frigate was named for Fort Erie, the bell was sent to that ship from the town to be returned to the town again when the war ended. Where is it now?
To answer Marguerite’s question, the bell hangs at the end of the bar in the lounge at Branch 71.
During WW2, the bell was sent to serve on the Frigate Fort Erie. When the war ended, the bell, owned by the Department of National Defence, was returned to Fort Erie.
In 2018, Royal Canadian Legion Dominion Command initiated “Bells of Peace”, a project asking that Legions across Canada ring bells at dusk, in November 2018 to commemorate WW1. Heritage Arts were asked by Branch 71 president to chair that project. The bell’s clapper had been welded shut, we rang it each December 24th by tapping it with a mallet.
Rich Dube released the clapper so that the bell could be rung properly on that memorial November 11th, 2018, occasion.
When WW2 broke out, Fort Erie had two brass bells held in storage. Town fathers decided to have them melted down for profit. The second bell served the town for many decades atop the fire hall located on the west side of Central Avenue between Jarvis and Dufferin streets. The Jarvis bell was sent to be melted first, but council found that it did not pay to have them disposed of in that way so the “Queen Street chime-peeler was kept in reserve”.
In 1944, the opportunity came for its use when the town adopted a frigate to be called Fort Erie. “The bell which formerly tolled from the tower of the old municipal building on Queen Street, will in the near future ring out mess calls and such things on the Frigate Fort Erie, to be commissioned within the next few weeks” (Fort Erie Times, October 12, 1944).
The Frigate Fort Erie served in the Battle of the Atlantic, the longest running battle of WW2 and received the battle honour “Atlantic 1945”, as did the BELL.
The Frigate Fort Erie was decommissioned in 1945 and the bell was sent to Fort Erie. She was recommissioned and served as a training ship until 1965. That second bell was sent to Fort Erie and is held in storage by the Fort Erie Museum. Fort Erie has two HMCS bells that sailed on the Frigate Fort Erie.
One question for many years was “How is a town honoured in having an HMCS WW2 battleship named for her?”
Our research tells us that towns adopted ships. So, our little town of Fort Erie adopted HMCS Fort Erie # 312.
In 1944, town councillor Charles Pullen, chair of the purchasing committee, was asked to provide comforts for the crew of the new vessel. He was informed by the Department of National Defence that the Bell would be placed in service on the Frigate. He advertised in the Times Review that the comforts were complete and would be on view for public inspection in the Masonic building on Jarvis Street. The only article not on display was a piano that was being shipped directly to the frigate.
Volunteer women involved Fort Erie school children in this project, they would visit a classroom, give each child a navy-blue drawstring bag with knitting materials. The kids at Mather school got to work on knitting navy blue socks and the kids at Rose Seaton worked on knitting squares. Kids also brought in donations from home such as combs, toothbrushes and toothpaste, soap, chocolate bars, and tinned food like sardines. We were involved.
HMCS Fort Erie was built in Quebec by George T Davie and Sons Ltd. In 1944. She was a river class frigate assigned as a convoy escort across the Atlantic. Her main duty was to ward off German submarines.
Fort Erie was given a plate sized plaster cast replica of the ship’s badge crest. We must have it held in storage by the Town or the Fort Erie Museum. Jim Doherty of the Niagara Falls Military Museum has several on display. Mazie Davies, a Heritage Arts member at large, purchased the aluminum original crest that had been mounted on the Frigate Fort Erie, from an antique dealer in Portsmouth, England.
In 2018, Heritage Arts decided to escalate its annual World Movement of ringing bells for Peace and Remembrance and that we needed a place to make a permanent list of the 42 War of 1812 Fort Erie Militia, Canada’s first veterans. We decided to build a thirty-two-foot Peace Bell Tower at the foot of Veterans Way.
The Peace Bell Tower would be all of Canada and dedicated to all veterans. When the Ottawa Bells were installed in 1927 to commemorate WW1, Mackenzie called it the “Voice of a Nation”.
Fort Erie’s Peace Tower would commemorate the War of 1812 and 200 years of PEACE and would be the “Voice of a Small Town”. When Pat was President of Branch 71, she invited Heritage Arts to make a Peace Bell Tower presentation at a general meeting. Our Peace Bell Tower Project was launched.
