Tristan's Blog

Last Remembrance Day, my class had to do project about someone in their family who had been in a war. I didn’t think I had a relative who was in a war so I was going to choose someone from my community instead. I didn’t really want to do this because I thought everyone else in my class would be able to find a relative. I didn’t want to be different from everyone else.

My dad reminded me that my mom had someone in her family, but we didn’t have any information about him other than he was in a war and he had been injured. My mom called my grandma because it was her uncle that we wanted information about. Unfortunately, she didn’t know much more than we already did.

The funny thing was, one of her cousins randomly phoned her a few weeks before and she had her phone number. Yippee for us! My grandma hadn’t talked to her in a very long time – almost 30 years! But she was the daughter of my great-great uncle who I wanted to do my report on. She gave us her number and my mom phoned her.

When my mom talked to her mom’s cousin, she gave us a little bit more information about her dad but she didn’t have a lot so she gave us the phone numbers of her 3 brothers. She thought they might have more information because they were more interested in war stuff. We found out one of them actually lives close to us, so my mom decided to talk to him first.

This was a great idea! When my mom called Christine’s brother, Warren, he gave us a lot more information about his dad. I learned a lot about my great-great uncle and his war-time experience. We asked if he had any pictures for me to put in my presentation. He didn’t, but his brother, Martin, had phoned a few days before and said he had finished putting all of his family’s old pictures on a disk. Warren told us to phone his brother to see if he could send us a few pictures by email. I needed the pictures quickly because my project was due in 2 days. Warren also did something really cool. He invited us to his house to show my mom and I some of the things he had from his dad in his war. There were his discharge papers and a letter that was sent to my great-great uncle’s mom saying that he hadn’t deserted because they forgot he went to work with the British military. That was a really interesting story. We also got to see his dad’s war medals and medals he won in a military sports day in England. Then, he lent them to us so I could take them to my class (with my mom) to show them with my presentation! Can y0u believe he actually did that?

My mom phoned Martin and he said he would send some pictures of my great-great uncle from when he was in the war. He also ended up sending us pictures from before and after the war, too. Martin gave us more information about his dad, so now my report was going to be great!

With all the information we gathered, my mom and I made a slide show about my great-great uncle and I presented it to my class. My mom got someone to look after her class and she came to help me and bring the medals. I was super nervous because I had never presented to an audience before by myself. I did it though and that made me proud. I was very happy that I was able to share my great-great uncle’s story with my class. The whole project turned out much better than I thought it would at the beginning.

After, my mom asked me to record what I talked about in the presentation so she could make a movie from the slide show.

Laurence Claude Borden from Jaki Braidwood on Vimeo.