Out of great tribulation: The Westfield Church windows

‘I have fought the good fight’: The names of the fallen – William Buchanan, C. Ivan Wightman and Russel F. Woods.

At the Westfield Methodist Church, a special service was held on July 4, 1920, to unveil the memorial windows dedicated to the congregation’s fallen during the Great War.

Of the 14 young men from the small church who enlisted, three were killed. Their home church honoured their sacrifice with a striking tribute in glass.

The stained glass would have been an extravagance for a Methodist church as they are the only stained-glass windows in the church. It is not known who the glass maker was but by their character, they were probably executed by the famed artist Robert McClausland of Toronto.

Although the three windows are spaced apart to fit the existing Gothic window openings on the south wall. Together, they were meant to form a whole triptych.

At the appointed hour, the special service began when 20 Great War veterans marched into the church before a full church who braved the July heat to witness the windows’ unveiling.

In reverence, the first notes of the “Last Post” were sounded and “those appointed” drew back the large flags covering the windows.

The Signal reported that it was a ‘tense moment as the last lingering note of that most musical of all bugle calls died away, and the people who thronged every available space in the church stood an instant longer viewing the noble work of art and then reverently took their seats,”.

What the flags revealed was a “magnificent specimens of art.” The left window depicted the risen Christ, victorious over death with the inscription “I am the resurrection and the life.

The right window represents the Angel of the Resurrection with the ‘fitting’ inscription: “These are they that have come out of great tribulation.”

The centre window “is a splendid depiction in glass of a Canadian soldier standing amid the poppies of Flanders battlefield, supporting the flag of Canada.

The head is bared, the features of the face are full of character expressive of the words of the inscription, ‘I have fought the good fight’.

At the windows pediment, are inscribed the names of the fallen—William Percy Buchanan, Charles Ivan Wightman and Russell Francis Woods along with the dates and places where they were killed.

For those in attendance on that July Sunday, those names were remembered as flesh and blood people. A century later, it is impossible to know those who fell other than their service records.

Private William Percy Buchanan was a 25-year-old school teacher.

Born on January 12, 1891, in East Wawanosh Township, Buchanan attended Wingham High School and the University of Toronto.

When he enlisted in March 1916, he was teaching at Toronto’s Carlton Street Public School.

Enlisting with the 170th (Mississauga Horse) battalion, he reported on his attestation papers that he had one year’s training with the Canadian Officers Training Corps at the University of Toronto.

Buchanan listed his marital status as single but, in fact, he was married.

He went to France with the 75th battalion (Central Ontario) and served with the battalion’s Lewis gun section. He survived the assault on Vimy Ridge in April 1917 but was killed in a trench raid around Lens where his battalion suffered heavy casualties on June 8, 1917.

Ivan Wightman was born on June 6, 1894, to a farming family.

He joined the 161st (Huron) Battalion on March 25, 1916, and left for overseas with the rest of the battalion in October 1916.

At one point, he was promoted to Lance Corporal but “at his own request” he reverted to the rank of private.

On December 4, he was taken on strength with the 58th battalion with a draft of several other Huron men to make up replacements for losses at the front.

Wightman survived some of the toughest fighting of the war at Vimy Ridge, and Hill 70 among others. At Passchendaele on October 26, 1917, Wightman’s battalion assaulted entrenched German positions. The battalion tried to keep close behind their covering artillery barrage, but the barrage broke up exposing the assaulting companies to German machine gun fire.

Despite heavy casualties, all battalion objectives were taken but Private Wightman was killed. The battalion diary cited 25 officers and other ranks for ‘conspicuous bravery’ in a ‘difficult’ operation.

Corporal Russell Francis Woods was born on April 21, 1893, in West Wawanosh Township. He was a Blyth bank clerk where he enlisted in the Blyth company of the 161st battalion on January 10, 1916. Like Wightman he went overseas with the Huron battalion but was taken on strength with the 4th (Central Ontario) battalion for service in France.

The 4th battalion was part of the 1st brigade of the first Canadian division. An elite unit, it had developed a reputation among the forces of the British Empire as a tough, offensive fighting force. There was pride in being part of it.

It is not known which battles Woods had fought in, but his battalion fought in every major Canadian engagement of the war from Ypres to the Hundred Day. He must have been a good leader because he was promoted to Corporal in July 1916.

During the frenzied Hundred Days battles from August 8 to November 11, 1918, the first division was a lead element in the British offensive.

As the Canadian and ANZAC forces drove the German lines back, Corporal Woods fell in the confused fighting around Cambrai. He was initially listed as missing but “believed killed” until October 21 when his remains were found. It was believed he fell on October 11 exactly one month before the Armistice.

As the unveiling service concluded, the Signal pronounced it “a fitting tribute to the supreme sacrifice of three of our finest heroes.”

Two lines from the poem “Gifts from the Dead”, which formed part of the ceremony’s program still resonate over a century later.

“Bethink you what a wealth of pride, they’ve won you for the coming years.”

The powerful message the windows convey echo off the walls of an empty church.