The Dallas Square Park cenotaph is a fixture that’s front and centre every Remembrance Day ceremony in Nanaimo.
The war memorial, situated near St. Paul’s Anglican Church and featuring names of people who sacrificed their lives in the First and Second World Wars and the Korean War, is composed of granite and stands four metres tall. Built in 1921, it has been around for more than 100 years.
Christine Meutzner, manager of the Nanaimo Community Archives, said records show the cenotaph was designed and created by local monument works owner C.E.J. Millins, who also owned a gravestone-making business.
“He had a business up on Machleary and Bowen and then he eventually moved away from here, but he was the one who did that design, and I might add, considerably a very elegant design, compared to a lot of other places,” said Meutzner. “It’s not as fussy as other ones and it’s just a really beautiful design.”
Records are not clear, but Meutzner said it appears as if there was a lot of community fundraising involved.
Lew Forth, Royal Canadian Legion Branch 256 Mount Benson past-president, said he would like to see the cenotaph expanded to honour veterans from other wars or campaigns, including peace-keeping missions and Afghanistan. There is room on the monument, he said, though he added that there are no current plans in the works for such additions.
The City of Nanaimo is examining a re-design of Dallas Square Park and one idea had involved moving the cenotaph to the corner of the park, but Forth said Branch 10 and Branch 256 legions gave a hard no.
“We found that no one was in favour of it being moved because it’s a heritage monument, you can’t just go and move it … there’s certain things that we will bend a little bit on on revitalizing the area, but the actual cenotaph, as far as we’re concerned, stays exactly where it is,” said Forth. “It’s been there since 1921 so why would we want to move it?”
Meutzner echoed Forth’s sentiment, stating the cenotaph is in an “appropriate place.”
“Everybody can see it, but it’s not overrun, and it’s peaceful there with the church garden area. It makes a nice background for it and you can sit there if you want to do that … It’s a lovely memorial,” she said. “And there’s plenty of space when they do a ceremony too, which is not true of every place.”
The memorial is recognized on the city community heritage register and Canadian Register of Historic Places.
Remembrance Day ceremonies will be held starting a little after 10:30 a.m. at Nanaimo’s Dallas Square Park, Lantzville’s Huddlestone Park, and Ladysmith’s Rotary Memorial Peace Garden.
For those who aren’t able to attend in person, Shaw TV will be live-streaming the downtown Nanaimo ceremony. For a link, visit www.facebook.com/Branch10LegionNanaimo.
READ ALSO: Council endorses multimillion-dollar Commercial Street redesign
karl.yu@nanaimobulletin.com
Follow Karl on Twitter and subscribe to our newsletter for the latest news.