Chestermere’s resident historical society is slated to host a Remembrance Day-themed presentation that sheds some light on Chestermere’s wartime history.
The presentation will be on Nov. 15 at 2 p.m. at the Chestermere Whitecappers Association.
Chestermere Historical Society, whose mandate is to provide programming, exhibits, and advocacy for the importance of local history, will be showcasing the lakeside community’s history from both World War I and World War II.
Kay Clarke, the society’s board member and archivist, is responsible for keeping track of the items donated to the historical society. She will be hosting the presentation along with the help of her daughters.
The local historian said she takes a personal interest in genealogy and often researches her family’s own wartime history around Remembrance Day each year.
“Part of my talk is going to be naming those who actually served from this area,” Clarke said of the upcoming presentation. “But, part of it is [also] going to be telling about what happened to the folks who were living around here and how they were supporting [the war effort].”
She added her family has resided in the Chestermere area since 1909, adding she often wonders what it would have been like for her ancestors and others living in the region during the war years. The upcoming presentation was inspired by her own curiosity and interest in wartime history.
Clarke said the lecture will include a PowerPoint presentation put on by either herself or her daughters and will include info she’s dug up from Chestermere’s own historical archives.
“It’s going to be a talk about the folks who went overseas and I’m going to talk about what the life was like around here, too,” she added.
Furthermore, several artifacts donated to the society will be on display at the Chestermere Public Library for approximately a month following the presentation.
Clarke said all are welcome to attend either the library display or the in-person historical presentation, free of charge.
Though the presentation itself won’t be too long (lasting about an hour or so), Clarke added people are encouraged to ask questions following the talk or share their own family’s wartime history afterward.
The Chestermere Historical Society was formed in 1961 as a means to research and publish a history of the area surrounding Chestermere Lake, including the regions of Shepard, Conrich, Delacour, Dalroy, and Forest Lawn, a former municipality now situated in east Calgary.
“Chestermere Historical Foundation’s mandate is the [preservation of the] history of Chestermere and the lives of the people who lived around Chestermere,” Clarke said.
According to Clarke, during both World War I and World War II, Chestermere wasn’t yet a village at the time.
“It was mainly rural people who lived around Chestermere at the time, and we have an interest in those people and what they were doing,” she explained.
One story to be shared at the presentation includes the account of three Royal Air Force (RAF) pilots who died in a crash above Conrich on Jan. 7, 1943.
An instructor and two cadets from the No. 37 Service Flying Training School, RAF, were killed in a mid-air collision during a training flight north of the municipal airport at the time.
All three pilots were from the United Kingdom, including leading aircraftman Alfred Leder, and flight trainer Philip Corlett who are both buried in Calgary at the Jewish and Burnsland Cemeteries, respectively.
