Photo: Choiceland.ca

A small Saskatchewan community has come together to honour the veterans from their area with a memorial.

The endeavor was led by four Choiceland natives: Diana Scott, Margaret McTaggart, Murray Hidlebaugh, and Barbara Hidlebaugh Yardy. Yardy says the idea came to her at her father’s funeral.

He was a Second World War veteran himself. While at the funeral, Yardy says, “Someone passed a comment, ‘Why is Choiceland the only town that doesn’t have a veterans memorial?'”

From there, a memorial project committee was formed, and the four got to work making calls and tracking down the family members of former soldiers.

“We went to the community through Facebook, e-mail, and home visits, and we wanted to make sure we got all the names from Choiceland and district and get them spelled correctly.”

“I think we’ve done a pretty good job,” Yardy admitted. “We haven’t had anyone say, ‘You missed so-and-so.'”

After over one year of searching, they had gathered 294 names.

“It’s not just a name. There’s a whole story behind it. Some of it’s funny, and some of it’s tragic, but it’s all human,” she recounts.

After the list was complete, a Saskatoon company commissioned a black granite memorial engraved with each name. It cost the committee $15,000, but the small community of just over 300 pulled through with generous donations. A grant from the Veterans Association of Canada put them over their goal.

Tomorrow, right after the Remembrance Day Ceremony, the memorial will be unveiled in its position outside of the Choiceland Historical Museum. It will be displayed before the eyes of residents, the mayor and reeve, Legion representatives, the local MLA and the federal MP for the area, among others.

Yardy says it was a difficult project to complete, but she would do it again in a heartbeat.