In Flanders Fields author's Winnipeg relatives carry on tradition

The famous words read each year in Canada on Nov. 11 are deeply personal for Winnipeg's Cameron Kilgour. The 23-year-oldis the great-great-nephew of John McCrae, author ofIn Flanders Fields.

"My family has always been pretty proud," Kilgoursaid.

McCrae, aFirst World War physician, wroteIn Flanders Fields100 years ago this year. The poem became so famous during and after the war it is credited with making poppies the symbol of remembrance throughout Canada and the United Kingdom.

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Kilgour's connection to the poet is through his great-grandmother, McCrae's sister. In the early 1900s, she married a lawyer and moved to Brandon, Man. Around 1920 they settled in Winnipeg, Kilgour said.

Since then, generations of Kilgours have helped keep the words of their relative alive on Remembrance Day. They're his closest relatives after McCraedied childless in 1918, the same year the First World War ended.

"Probably one of the times where it hit me the most was when I was in Grade 6," Kilgour said."I did a research project on [McCrae] for a Remembrance Day ceremony and found out a little bit more about how he died it was pneumonia in Europe and how he was in both the Boer War and World War I."

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Kilgourwent on to read his great-great-uncle's poem at assemblies in high schooland continues to read the poem whenever he's asked, just like the rest of his family, he said. He was asked to read the poem at his alma mater,Kelvin High School, on Tuesday.

"We're happy to do it as much as possible to get the exposure and talk to people about [the poem]," he said. "We're happy to help."

In Flanders Fields has been part of Kilgour'slife for as long as hecan remember. His family brought him up to not just read the poem but try to understand the meaning of it, he said.

"They've always guided me through understanding the poem and why it was written, how it was written," he said.

It is about remembering the soldiers, said Kilgour, and the devastation that happened in the First World War.

"That was the first war that biological warfare was used, mustard gas. [McCrae] was a doctor and was on the front lines of that. He saw the pain and suffering a lot of the people went through," said Kilgour.

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders Fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders Fields.

John McCrae