Battle of Vimy Ridge - David McLean

Lettie Vanstone was Bob Hearn's first cousin.  Their mothers were sisters, the daughters of Joseph and Sarah Fulcher.  Letta lived on Queen Street in St. Marys across from the present-day hospital. I have no pictures of Lettie but there are a few reports in the local newspaper of her attending a wedding in Forest or communicating with relatives in the United States.  At some point she met and married David McLean who had emigrated, along with his parents and brother, from Scotland.  Lettie and David lived in Toronto where David was a foreman at Dooderham and Worts distillery.  They had one son George. In January 1916, when the first war was well into the heavy slogging phase, David and a friend, who lived on the same street, reported to the Toronto Recruiting Depot and joined the 48^th Highlanders.  In August 1916 “after a period of hard training at Camp Borden, …. [they] completed their final leave and strode down the street together en route for overseas. Each had agreed that should some mishap overtake one of them the other was to advise the family folk with all due speed. …. During Easter week, which will always be remembered in Canadian history because of the gallantry of the Dominion’s representatives at Vimy Ridge, the two comrades, shoulder to shoulder, charged over the parapet and helped to capture the enemy’s trenches. ….. on April 20^th when enjoying a rest in a dug-out a …. shrapnel shell burst near them.  A fragment hit Pte. McLean on the temple and knocked him unconscious.  Other pieces of shrapnel badly wounded him about the legs. …. Fifteen minutes later Pte. McLean passed on, and his friend, true to the promise made, wrote the sad news home.”  (The quotes above have been pieced together from articles in the Evening Telegram 18 May 1917, p. 21 and the St. Marys Journal 24 May 1917, p. 5).

David McLean died almost exactly 100 years ago today on 20 April 2017.  His name appears on the Vimy Memorial. I have no record of how David's wife Lettie or their 10 year-old son George spent the remainder of their lives. Nor do I have any record of whether David’s comrade T. P. Grant from down the street on Eastmount Avenue survived the war.  Attached is a photo of David taken very likely in his back garden on Eastmount Avenue. I have also attached the official Record of Service card recording the death of David McLean.