By Hedy Korbee
A milestone celebration will take place in the heart of Birch Cliff on Saturday, June 4.
Branch 13 of the Royal Canadian Legion is commemorating 100 years of service to veterans, their families, and the broader community.
The centenary event at 1577 Kingston Road will bring together former service members, dignitaries, and local residents for an open house, barbecue, drinks, speeches, and music by local artists.
“I feel very, very proud to belong to such an outfit as the Royal Canadian Legion,” said John White, of the organization he’s been a member of for 54 years.
“We’ve had tough times and we’ve had good times and we’ve had easy times and hard times, but we’re still going.”
The historic Scarboro Veterans Memorial Hall, renown for its colourful mural of soldiers marching off to war, was built in 1922.
It has welcomed veterans of every Canadian conflict since the First World War.
When the cornerstone was laid on Dec. 5, 1922, it was described by the Globe and Mail as “an important event in the history of the veterans’ organizations in Toronto’s suburban district.”
Royal Canadian Legion, Branch 13, 1922. Photo: Scarborough Archives
Cornerstone laid for Scarboro’ Veterans Memorial Hall. Globe and Mail Dec. 5, 1922.
Branch 13 President Dan Burri and 1st Vice President Ken Thompson, 2019 Poppy Campaign.
While membership has ebbed and flowed over the years, what’s never wavered is the local Legion’s tradition of service.
Last year, Branch 13 raised $30,000 through its Poppy Campaign.
The money was distributed to the Sunnybrook Veterans Program, service dog programs, and Veterans Left Behind, an organization that helps unhoused veterans, according to Dan Burri, president of Branch 13.
“We still have veterans that served in Afghanistan and Bosnia and in peacekeeping missions around the world. And that’s why we have to carry on, being here and having the Poppy Campaign every year, so we can support the veterans,” Burri said.
“In a way, it’s false to think that veterans are only from World War I, World War II, and the Korean War. Everybody who serves in the Canadian Forces and the RCMP are veterans too.
Another $8,000 was raised through other means to support Variety Village, the Bluffs Food Bank, and the Shepherds of Good Hope.
Branch 13 donation to Variety Village Swim Team. Photo: John Smee/Bluffs Monitor
In the beginning
A century ago, Scarborough First World War veterans originally organized themselves as the “Returned Men’s Club” as well as the “Great War Veterans Association”.
They merged and worked together to help those returning from the battlefield in search of camaraderie, employment assistance, health services, and pensions.
There were about 15 such organizations in Canada and what emerged was an ineffective patchwork of groups and services that eventually united in 1926 as “The Canadian Legion of the British Empire Service League”.
In 1960, Queen Elizabeth granted royal patronage and the organization became known as the Royal Canadian Legion.
Governor General Lord Byng of Vimy visits Branch 13 of the Royal Canadian Legion. May 27, 1923. Photo: Joan Clarke Family.
A highlight of the early years was a visit by Governor General Lord Julian Byng, the Vimy Ridge war hero, who attended a ceremony at Branch 13 on May 27, 1923.
Lord Byng received an enthusiastic welcome from the Birch Cliff community, according to an account in the Globe and Mail.
“The Canadian Corps was founded on a spirit of comradeship,” Lord Byng told the crowd. “It meant a great deal to us in those days. And I am certain there is use for the same spirit today. This hall is an expression of it, and one in which we can all take the greatest pleasure.’
Globe and Mail, May 28, 1923.
Overcame early financial hurdles
Newspaper archives indicate that Branch 13 faced early financial difficulties from 1926 to 1928, however, members triumphed to save Scarboro Veterans Memorial Hall from the auction block over mortgage difficulties.
Globe and Mail, December 5, 1930
By 1930 the local Legion was out of the red and raised $2,000, along with two other Scarboro branches, to help pay for the Scarborough Cenotaph at Kingston Road and Danforth Avenue where Remembrance Day Ceremonies are still held today.
Not only did local Scarborough veterans provide funding for the war memorial, but they were also heavily involved in the construction, which was unique at the time.
The cenotaph was officially unveiled on August 30, 1931, by Premier George S. Henry and Admiral John Jellicoe, Admiral of the Fleet, the highest-ranking officer in the Royal Navy.
According to the Globe and Mail, Admiral Jellicoe noted that the Township of Scarboro “contributed men in a usually heavy proportion to their population when the call to arms came in 1914.”
Ontario’s Minister of Public Welfare, H.G. Martin added that the cenotaph was deliberately designed to face east “from which comes all our hope”.
“Canada’s best have come from the East, and it was fitting the memorial should face their native soil,” Martin said.
Scarboro War Memorial unveiling, August 31, 1931. Photo: Scarborough Archives
Globe and Mail, August 31, 1931
Photo: John Smee/Bluffs Monitor.
Post-Second World War expansion
Rapid expansion after the Second World War led to the construction in 1956 of an addition on the east side of Veterans Memorial Hall.
It’s not difficult to see why more space was needed when viewing the Second World War service plaques that hang at Birch Cliff Public School and St. Nicholas Church.
The plaques, hand-drawn by Group of Seven artist A.J. Casson, include long lists of names of Birch Cliff residents who volunteered to fight, with stars denoting those who died at war.
Birch Cliff Public School war veterans plaque
St. Nicholas Anglican Church war veterans plaque
According to veteran Doug Julette, in a March 2005 article in the Bluffs Monitor, 31 out of 40 students in the Birch Cliff PS class of 1935/36 joined the service during the Second World War. Julette was featured for receiving his 60-year membership pin along with George Gordon.
Bluffs Monitor, 2005, Branch 13 60-year service awards
John White, who joined Branch 13 in the 1960s, said post-Second World War membership rose to 700 people and they enjoyed euchre, cribbage, snooker, and Saturday night dances, where people “lined up at the door on Kingston Road because there were no corner bars on Kingston Road in the 1960s and early 70s.”
1991 facelift
Photo: John Smee/Bluffs Monitor.
In 1991, almost 80 years after it was built, Scarboro Veterans Memorial Hall got a facelift that transformed it from a squat brick building into a Kingston Road landmark.
The Legion collaborated with what was then known as the Scarborough Arts Council and lead Karin Eaton to create a colourful mural by artist John Hood that helped mark the beginning of Scarborough’s Heritage Trail.
The mural depicts members of the Scarborough Rifle company marching along Kingston Road to the Niagara Frontier in 1866.
They were rushing to defend Ontario from the Fenians, Irish-Americans who staged a series of raids to try and conquer Canada in the hope of trading it for Irish independence.
Community membership drive
By 2019, dwindling membership in the Legion led to financial problems once again and developers started sniffing around in search of prime real estate for their next condo project.
In order to help the Legion remain viable, a community campaign was launched to recruit Birch Cliff residents as affiliate members. Membership grew 20% in one year as a result and, despite the pandemic, membership has continued to grow by 10% in each of the last two years.
Branch 13 membership is approaching is approaching 260 people, including 29 veterans.
Feb. 2019 membership swearing in ceremony, the largest ever held at Branch 13 of the Royal Canadian Legion. Photo: Sandy Robitaille
The community responded yet again during Covid lockdowns by participating in bottle drives to help the Legion raise $12,000 to pay its monthly bills.
“There is a growing groundswell of local pride and support for Scarboro #13 for both its support of veterans and non-profit organizations, as well as its rental hall increasingly becoming a destination for events and celebrations,” said Membership Chair, Dr. Gerard Arbour.
“We hope for the hall to remain a vital community hub and to hold off the condo developers for another 100 years.”
What’s next?
There are almost 618,000 veterans in Canada today. Fewer than 25,000 served in the Second World War and the Korean War and the average age of Second World War vets is 96.
Not surprisingly, Branch 13 President Dan Burri said one of his immediate goals is to find more young veterans in Scarborough to pass the torch to the next generation.
Josh Makuch, 38, is one of those young veterans who became a member of Branch 13 just before the pandemic.
Makuch spent 13 years in the military and served as a rifle platoon commander in Afghanistan as part of Charlie Company in the Royal 22nd Regiment battle group.
Makuch hasn’t visited Branch 13 as much as he would like because of Covid and the fact that he has a young child.
He noted that he’s unlikely to run into anyone he served with at the Legion because modern recruitment is different than it was during WWII when large numbers of young men from the same communities shipped out together and fought in the same regiments.
Nonetheless, Makuch said the Legion is a vital organization.
“I think it’s important that soldiers and veterans always have a place that they can call home, whether they know they need it or not. Politically, for instance, it’s not always top of mind for the government of the day to be thinking about the needs of veterans, especially the further you get from a conflict. To know that there’s an organization out there that has got its eyes on the ball a little bit, even if it’s not doing it perfectly, is a comfort, I think because we never know what people are going to need at various points in their lives,” Makuch said.
Meanwhile, John White who is now 89 years old, plans to do his best to mark the centennial of Branch 13 on June 4th, even though he’s a bit under the weather.
“I’m very proud that the building is still there and hasn’t been demolished, like the rest of the area, with a condominium in its place. I don’t know what steps to go through to make it a heritage building, but I’m sure that would protect it from further development,” White said.
Celebrations will begin at 1:00 pm on June 4th at 1577 Kingston Road, east of Kildonan Drive, with the barbecue open as well as the patio and upstairs bar.
The official ceremony will take place at 2:30 pm with music to follow.
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Hedy Korbee is a Birch Cliff journalist.
