Mrs. Kate Palmer’s Walk

Two Commonwealth War Graves Commission headstones for Ptivates E.F. Gower and Roy Palmer, late of the 8th Canadian Infantry Battalion "The Little Black Devils". The markers are inscribed with a maple leaf representative of Canada and a Christian cross. The markers are identical in style.
Standing in the footsteps of Kate Palmer. At her son’s grave, Private Roy Palmer,Woods Military Cemetery, Belgium.
P. Ferguson image, August 2018.

Thread Seven

1922 – Kate Palmer of Victoria, B.C. journeyed to Belgium to visit her son’s grave at Woods Military Cemetery, south of Ypres.

Today, 11 August 2018, we retrace Mrs. Palmer’s path and decide to walk from Ypres to the grave-site of Roy Palmer, located some five miles south of the city. It is a wooded area and a place I have visited before. Mrs. Palmer’s journey came to me when recently researching through the pages of Victoria’s Daily Colonist newspaper, “widow of Deputy-Chief of Police returns from Ypres, where she visited her son’s grave, which she found well cared for by Belgians…Woods Military Cemetery, Zillebeke, killed in action at Sanctuary Wood Jun 3, 1916.” (Daily Colonist, 1922-09-03, p.5)

As we find our way I re-visit a demarcation stone that I regularly photograph, and also return to both Spoilbank and Chester Farm Cemeteries. Nearby, horses tug at the grass across the road from a farmer’s field where, over the years, the fragments of war routinely appear. They are part of the crimson that lies and grows here – iron and poppies.

As I approach Roy Palmer’s grave I can only wonder of Mrs. Kate Palmer’s footsteps. Could she hear her own heartbeat? Was she alone? How did she get here and from where exactly did she come from? Have I passed by her place of stay in Ypres and, as I stand before the marker, have her tears graced this soil? I am here today standing within her footsteps, the moment is not lost upon me. Across the fields the towers of Ypres rise above the horizon.

I remain a while, standing alongside the graves of seven other members of the 8th Battalion CEF (Roy’s comrades), knowing too that another message, from Kate, appeared in the Daily Colonist, “In ever loving memory of Roy, eldest and dearly beloved son of Kate and late Thomas Palmer, Deputy Chief of Police, KIA Jun 3, 1916 at Ypres, also all his dear comrades.” (Daily Colonist 1923-06-03)

Side by Side

881 Sgt. J. Nicholas (3 June 1916)
622680 Pte. R.W. Reynolds (2 June 1916)
A/22682 Pte. P.M. Stevens (3 June 1916)
150128 Pte. T. Jackson (3 June 1916)
150093 Pte. E.F. Gower (2 June 1916)
17269 Pte. R. Palmer (3 June 1916)
A/22772 Pte. F.W. Ridley (4 June 1916)
460813 Lt. A.J. Hill (4 June 1916)

Published on the square, Ieper (Ypres), 11 August 2018

Nine Commonwealth War Graves Commission headstones at the back of Woods Cemetery, near to the wall. A van is in the field behind the wall. We are looking towards Ypres to a blue sky filled with puffy white clouds.
Side by side…comrades of Roy Palmer lie together at Woods Military Cemetery.
Together with one other from an English regiment.
P. Ferguson image, August 2018.

——-SNIP——-

Previously published Pipes of War website, 11 August 2018