WESTLOCK - The Westlock No Stone Left Alone initiative continues, albeit with a little help from a former veteran, who’s also the Town of Westlock’s fire chief.
On Nov. 2, Stuart Koflick pitched in to lay flags at the graves of the 100-or-so veterans interred at the Westlock Municipal Cemetery — in past years students were tasked with placing poppies on the graves, which is an impossibility this year due to COVID-19.
Koflick, who served in the military from 1992-1997, said it was an honour to be able to pitch in. He also noted that many of the locals who served in the military, like Second World War veteran Ernie Wood, went on to help build the Westlock fire department.
“I feel a sense of duty to carry on the torch in reference to what Marjorie (Steele) has done over the last eight years,” said Koflick. “We serve the community in a quote, paramilitary fashion, and we have a sense of duty to Canada, the province and the Town of Westlock. I want to do it as long as I can and mentor our members. We owe our veterans this tribute.”
Westlock Legion pastor Marjorie Steele, who has called No Stone Left Alone “a labour of love”, thanked Koflick for all he’s done.
Steele served from 1958 to 1962 in the Reserves in Saskatchewan in the service corps, while her twin brother Dave was in the armoured corps.
“He’s been so wonderful … the fire department has been so great and pitched in last year also. Due to my health I just can’t take part anymore and he’s been so helpful allowing this program to continue,” said Steele, noting there are roughly 720 vets buried in area cemeteries.
Steele was the driving force behind bringing the initiative to Westlock back in 2012 after she had read about Maureen G. Bianchini-Purvis, the Edmonton woman who started No Stone Left Alone.
Bianchini-Purvis visited her veteran parents’ graves at Beechmount Cemetery with her family each year to lay poppies, and her daughters were surprised to see few other graves had them, which prompted her to slowly build on that idea and deliver poppies to each veteran’s grave. The initiative has gone international with similar events in the U.S. and Ukraine — the No Stone Left Alone website notes that in 2019, 12,297 students from 127 schools placed 64,503 poppies in 121 cemeteries.
Following, Steele along her friend Harry Marshall, who recently passed away, started an exhaustive process of searching out the graves of veterans one by one.
“It’s taken a lot of shoe leather to find them all,” Steele said in a past interview. “Harry and I spent many an hour walking through the cemeteries around this area looking for veterans’ graves.”
Legion president Paul Taverner said without Steele the program never would have started in Westlock.
“We’re very proud of this woman for all that she’s done,” said Taverner.
Last year, local students placed poppies on over 550 graves in the region’s cemeteries — students from Pembina North Community School, R.F. Staples and St. Mary School were just some to participate. In addition to the 100 at the Westlock cemetery, there are 31 at the St. Mary Catholic Cemetery and around 40 in Dungannon Cemetery. In a past interview, Steele noted the only local veteran to have served in both the Boer War (1899-1902) and the First World War is interred in Pickardville.
