Tombstones Tuesday: SMITH, Sidney

Sidney Smith
1918 - 2010
Beau "Lac" Funeral Home¹

The following information comes from Our Harvest of Memories (1983).²

Hubert Sidney Smith was born in England in 1918 to Hubert Sidney and Ethel Mary (Hedges) Smith.

His paternal grandparents were John and Esther (--?--) Smith who immigrated from England to Canada in 1913 with their children Sidney Sr., Nellie, and Elizabeth (with husband Albert Brundson and sons Cyril and Sidney). Esther and John had been proceeded to Canada in 1904 by their children Fred, William, and Louise (Fred Wernham).

Sidney Sr. enlisted in 1914 with the 53rd Battalion of the Canadian Army and was sent overseas in 1915, and meet and married Ethel Hedges in 1916. In 1919 Sidney Sr. returned to Canada with his wife Ethel and son Sidney Jr.  All this moving between England and Canada resulted in a development that Sidney Jr. recounts as thus:

"My biggest disappointment came about 1970, when some of those bureaucrats and politicians in Ottawa decided that because we were not born in Canada we were not Canadians. They disregarded the fact that my father had served four years in the Canadian Army and was therefore a Canadian. It seemed ironic to me that I should be awarded the [Canadian] Centennial Medal in 1967 in recognition of valuable service to the nation, then a short time later be informed that I was not a citizen. Needless to say, I received my citizenship papers immediately and now have a certificate to prove it."

Sidney Jr. began attending school in1924 at age six and concluded his high school schooling in 1937. On 3 November 1941 Sidney Jr. married Amelia "Millie" Stene with whom he had a son and a daughter.

Sidney Jr. was an active member of the community, serving as the director of the Stugreon Valley Co-op Hall for a number of years, helped form the early snowplow club, served on the R.M. of Shellbrook council for fifteen years, and as of 1983 served thirty-three years on the district and Divisions School Boards.

One thing of note, Sidney himself alternates between writing "Sidney" and "Sydney" and the short nickname "Sid" and "Syd" so it will be interesting to see what version of his name will be written upon his tombstone if one is erected.

Sources:
[1]Holy Trinity Anglican Cemetery (Sturgeon Valley, R.M. of Shellbrook no. 493, Saskatchewan, Canada; in NE Section 16, Township 51, Range 2, West of the 3rd Meridian), Sidney Smith marker, photographed by Alanna Carswell, May 2011.
[2]Coles, Cathy, ed. Our Harvest of Memories: Foxdale, Sturgeon Valley, Silver Cliff, Three Creeks, Rayside, Rich Valley. Shellbrook: Shell River North Book Committee, 1983. pp. 586-589. Print.