Aviators Remembered

Story and photos by John Chalmers
CAHS Membership Secretary
The Alberta Aviation Museum in Edmonton has added new commemorative stones to their Aviation Heritage Memorial. Their most recent additions honour Canada’s Aviation Hall of Fame inducted members Molly and Jack Reilly.
An annual ceremony by 700 Wing of the RCAF Association is held at the Alberta Aviation Museum to recognize individuals who are remembered with stones bearing their names, installed at the base of the Aviation Heritage Memorial.
 
On September 23 at the Alberta Aviation Museum, 700 (City of Edmonton) Wing of the RCAF Association dedicated 10 more commemorative stones in the base of the museum’s Aviation Heritage Memorial.
Erwin Loewen, immediate Past Chairman of 700 Wing, who has a long association with Air Cadets and the Alberta Aviation Museum, presented biographies of the ten individuals commemorated at the ceremony.
Names of individuals at the memorial are engraved in granite stones, 10” x 6” x 2” and placed in the base surrounding the memorial. Others remembered in the stones this year are Alan Greaves, John Roe, Francis Harris, Larry Duke, Richard Kermode, Frank DeWindt, Harry Schultz and F.J. Anderson. All who were recognized with a stone this year comprise a vast range of experience  in civil and RCAF aviation service.
Included among those were the late CAHF Members John “Jack” Reilly and his wife, Moretta “Molly” Reilly, who were both inducted as original Members of Canada’s Aviation Hall of Fame in 1974. Their stories can be seen, along with those of all members and the Hall’s Belt of Orion recipients, at the CAHF web site, www.cahf.ca. As well as Jack and Molly, their son, Patrick, an accomplished pilot who is still flying, was also commemorated with a new stone.
As with other such memorials, stones are often sponsored by family members or friends to remember and honour someone, not necessarily deceased, who is eligible for recognition at the monument. At present there are 3,000 granite stones for remembrance in the base of the monument, which is comprised of 34 circular rows with 653 named stones at present.
Following the ceremony, families of those named in the memorial stones had opportunity to have their photos taken by the central monument. It is a three-sided structure representing a three-bladed propeller, topped with a symbolic nose cone.
Next to the memorial, mounted in flight, is an RCAF CF-101 Voodoo of the museum. The three sides of the central monument represent air force and military aviation; bush pilots, pioneers and experimenters; and commercial air industry. Three large bronze plaques appropriately illustrated bear the words in three phrases: At the going down of the sun; And in the morning; We will remember them.
For more information about the 700 Wing memorial, see https://www.700wing.com/information.
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