Adding the Names: A Visit to the Ontario Fallen Fire Fighter Memorial
Tucked into a quiet corner of Queen’s Park at College Street and University Avenue, the Ontario Fallen Fire Fighter Memorial is easy to pass by. On a recent visit, I was fortunate to watch engravers carefully adding this year’s names ahead of the annual memorial ceremony, held the first Sunday in October.
The memorial was dedicated on June 5, 2005, with 344 names. At its centre, a bronze firefighter carries a child to safety, standing on a red Maltese Cross, the international symbol of firefighting. Behind him/her rises a black granite monolith representing a building. The surrounding black granite walls bear the name, rank and date of death of each fallen firefighter. These include not only those lost at the scene of a fire, but also those who died from illnesses contracted in the line of duty.
The earliest name on the walls is William Thornton, killed on November 24, 1848, when a wall collapsed on him as he fought a fire in the shops at King and Church Streets.
The engraver in my photograph uses a rubber stencil that’s applied to the face of the stone, and the letters are carefully cut out of it. Portable sandblasting equipment then carves the exposed granite. Finally, the new letters are coloured to match the names already inscribed.
Every year the ceremony falls on the first Sunday in October.
My return several weeks later and the names completed on the black granite.
I encourage you to pause that day to honour the firefighters whose names grace these walls, and to give thanks to the men and women who continue to serve and protect us every day.
