As Remembrance Day approaches, the Homes of Heroes project places signs at participating homes where veterans once lived, pointing passersby to an online profile of the person behind the address. Among the Halton Hills profiles are a Norval woman who did top-secret wartime research and a Glen Williams soldier killed in the last weeks of fighting in Europe.
The project says its goal is to collect and share veterans' stories and build a connection with the communities they call home. Its website maps the former homes of veterans in Halton Hills and in Paris, Ont. The signs come down after Remembrance Day, but the map and every profile stay online all year.
Joan Browne was born and raised at 10 Noble Street in Norval, a property designated under the Ontario Heritage Act, the provincial law that lets municipalities protect buildings of historic value. In 1943, at 18, she enlisted in the Canadian Women's Army Corps, the army's women's branch during the Second World War, and served until 1946.
Stationed in Ottawa, she worked on a research team headed by Dr. Arthur Riley Armstrong, an associate of Frederick Banting, the Canadian scientist best known for the discovery of insulin. According to her Homes of Heroes profile, Browne worked on many top-secret wartime projects whose details were only made public in 1995.
Her brothers served too: Gordon in the Second World War and Douglas in Korea. After the war, on Feb. 23, 1946, she married Ormie Carter, another Norval veteran, at St. Paul's Anglican Church in the village.
For 31 years she managed the Norval Post Office. In 1996 she published a book, "Norval History 1820-1950," which has never been out of print. Her Canadian Army uniform was donated to the Lorne Scots Museum in Brampton.
Clarence Beaumont was born in Glen Williams on Sept. 8, 1921, and grew up with his parents and siblings in a semi-detached house at 528 Main St. He served with the Perth Regiment (Motor).
He served in Italy from October 1943 to February 1945, then in Northwest Europe until April 28, 1945, when he was reported killed at 23, days before the war in Europe ended. His first cousin, Flight Sergeant Lawrence Beaumont, also of Glen Williams, had been killed in action on Feb. 3, 1945.
His parents offered to pay to bring his body home, but military protocol did not allow it. He is buried with fellow fallen soldiers at Holten Canadian Military Cemetery in the Netherlands. At home, his name is on the Georgetown Cenotaph in Remembrance Park, at Georgetown District High School and at St. Alban's Church in Glen Williams.
Glen Williams will not hold its own Remembrance service this year because of construction in the village. Anyone who knows a veteran who lives or lived in Halton Hills or Paris can share their story with the project at [email protected].
