Do the poppies blow or grow in Flanders Fields? That question has been debated since Lt. Col. John McCrae wrote his famous poem during a lull in fierce combat raging across Belgium’s farm fields nearly a century ago. The answer – of sorts – can be found in a small stone house beside the Speed River in Guelph.
It’s the home where McCrae was born on Nov. 30 in 1872. Today the stone house is a museum dedicated to Guelph’s famous son and it contains most of his handwritten poetry, including In Flanders Fields.
On one wall there’s a copy of the poem, hand-written by McCrae – and its opening stanza is “In Flanders Fields the poppies blow.” But beneath the cherished paper, yellow with age, there’s a note saying the editor of Punch, the British magazine that first published the poem, changed the word “grow” to “blow,” but first got McCrae’s permission.
The poem became famous after appearing in the Dec. 8 edition of Punch in 1915 and McCrae sent several handwritten copies of his poem to family and friends after its publication. In some copies he wrote blow, in some, grow. Of course, the poem ends with the lines, “If ye break faith with us who die we shall not sleep, though poppies grow in Flanders fields.”
The editor at Punch asked McCrae to change the first line to blow, because the last line uses the word grow. McCrae’s story is told on the walls of the house where he grew up in Guelph before heading off to University of Toronto as the first Guelph student to win a scholarship to that school.
His father was commanding officer of the militia field battery established in Guelph and McCrae joined the militia at age 16. After earning an undergraduate degree at the University of Toronto, he attended its medical school. On Nov. 11, students at John McCrae Public School walked two blocks down Water St. to hold their annual Remembrance Day assembly in the memorial gardens beside McCrae House.
The following morning the Lt. Col. John McCrae branch of the Royal Canadian Legion held its annual Remembrance Day ceremonies in the memorial garden. In the days leading up to Nov. 11 the Guelph Amateur Radio Club operated a ham radio station in the McCrae kitchen and talking to amateur radio operators all around the world about McCrae and his famous poem.
“There are people throughout Europe and Asia who know a lot more about McCrae and this home than the people who live here in Guelph,” said radio operator Mike Willis. Ken Irvine, a program assistant at Guelph Civic Museum, displays a guest book in the McCrae house that is filled with names from around the world. “You’ll see in there comments from people who say they have been at the Lt. Col. McCrae’s grave in France.
They’ve seen his end and they wanted to see his beginning.” said Irvine. His home, built in 1857, was slated to be torn down in 1966 to make way for an apartment building. Neighbours of the McCrae home mortgaged their own homes to buy the home of their famous neighbour from the developer. They formed the Lt. Col. McCrae Birthplace Society, restored the home, opened it as a museum and in 1983 transferred ownership to the City of Guelph.
It is now a National Historic Site. The memorial garden beside the home was created in 1946 by the local Legion. The home is open every day from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. and admission is $4 for adults, $3 for seniors, but there’s no charge on Nov. 11. On the walls you can read about the life of John McCrae. He was a prolific writer. He wrote a daily dairy, had a variety of short stories published, plus more than 40 medical articles. He wrote hundreds of letters to friends and family from the W.W.1 battlefields.
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He would ghost-write stories by his battlefield horse …. for his niece and nephew back in Ontario and sign them with a hoof print. And he wrote many poems. In Flanders fields was his second last poem. He wrote it in May, 1915, after a close friend was killed in Flanders Belgium by a German shell. The friend was buried in a makeshift grave marked with a simple wooden cross. Wild poppies were already blooming between the crosses.
McCrae wrote the poem while sitting in the back of a field ambulance looking at his friend’s gave. His poem turned the poppy from a pretty weed to the symbol of remembrance for those who died in battle. Soon after it was written McCrae was transferred to No. 3 (McGill) Canadian General Hospital at Dannes-Cammiers France.
The hospital had 1,560 beds under tents covering 26 acres. Wounded soldiers from Vimy Ridge, Battle of the Somme, the third battle of Ypres and Passchendaele were brought to the hospital where McCrae was chief of medical services. Gas attacks by the Germans in Flanders in 1915 had damaged McCrae’s lungs and when he was stricken with pneumonia in 1918 he was unable to fight off the ailment and died at age 45 in Wimereaux, France where he is buried near Calais.