Marda Loop is where people come to shop, eat, meet friends and have good times. But around Remembrance Day we are reminded of the role this community and its residents have played in times of adversity and sacrifice. Many of the stories are told in the plaques of Garrison Woods, but there are other places that are also touched by history.
The origin of Remembrance Day dates back to the First World War, then called the Great War. South Calgary was on the edge of town – it was newly built and relatively sparsely settled along the streetcar line and around the imposing King Edward School.
Members of many neighbourhood families served in uniform; one building that still stands today, the Summers Block, was home to several who served:
The Summers Block, at 2715 14th Street SW, was built in 1913 by grocer Charles J. Summers. His eldest son, Arthur, worked in the family store until he enlisted in 1915.
Private Arthur Summers served with the 50th (Calgary) Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force and was killed in action in 1916. John Thomas Hawkins, a conductor on the South Calgary streetcar route, lived in an upstairs apartment with his wife and daughter. He also joined the 50th Battalion and was killed in action in 1917.
Private Robert D. McWilliam and his son Alex McWilliam survived the war and lived in the Summers Block after they returned. Both men were passengers on the South Calgary streetcar that derailed and crashed into Crooks Drugs at the bottom of the 14th Street hill in the winter of 1919. Robert was the only person killed in the infamous crash.
On the war’s home front, local boys too young to enlist drilled as cadets at King Edward School, and in 1916 the school’s team won the Calgary Herald’s Cadet Trophy, a coveted prize. Groups like the South Calgary Social Club and the South Calgary Patriotic Club held social events, often at King Edward, to raise funds for causes like the Red Cross or tobacco purchases for soldiers. On at least two occasions during the war, women gathered in a Summers Block apartment to sew together for the Red Cross.
The Summers Block, (C/O Heritage Calgary)
Private Arthur C. Summers (Calgary Daily Herald, November 23, 1916)
The Great War was said to be the “war to end all wars” but that was unfortunately not to be. Only 21 years later the Second World War caused the Great War to be re-named “the First”. More than a century later the streets, buildings and people of Marda Loop are marked by remembrances of those who served, those who waited at home, and those who never returned.
Lest we forget.
Information is from A Loop in Time, A History of the Marda Loop Neighbourhoods. Read the full document at www.visitmardaloop.com/history
Featured image credit: Cadets in front of King Edward School, 1914 (Glenbow Library and Archives Collection)