Margaret O’Brien commissioned the family war memorial grotto after losing four of her six sons over a period of two years during the Second World War. She is recognized on a plaque at Signal Hill Road in St. John's as Newfoundland's "Most bereaved mother for World War II". Her husband Maurice passed away in 1942 between losing their third and fourth sons.
The grotto is a free-standing stone structure with a statue of Anne, the patron saint of mothers, resting on a pillar with the names of the O'Brien men who died in the war. Mrs. O'Brien herself paid for its creation in the mid-1950s. It was built by the father and son team Richard (senior and junior) Mahon, formerly of Logy Bay. Over the years its foundation had shifted, leaving the structure unstable and the statue of St. Anne badly damaged. In 2020, the Logy Bay Development Association, a community non-profit, raised funds and contracted the Grand Concourse Authority to stabilize the foundation and restore the grotto and statue to its original condition. At this time, the spelling of the family name on the memorial was corrected from O’Brine to O’Brien.
The Veterans Memorial Committee of the Development Association created the nearby storyboard of the family's history in 2002 to ensure the town remembered why the memorial was there. Maurice Jr. served with the Royal Navy and his ship was torpedoed in the northeast Atlantic on December 2, 1940. Michael worked on an American merchant ship and his vessel was torpedoed on March 30, 1941. David served with the Royal Navy Auxiliary and accidently drowned on September 28, 1942, in St. John's Harbour when his ship was in port. Denis served in the Royal Navy and returned home safely. John briefly enlisted with the Royal Navy, but his health prevented him from going overseas. He then joined the Newfoundland Militia and served until April 30, 1941.
The committee's research of James, the third son lost, took an unexpected turn. The family thought he was lost at sea, but the researcher found a detailed account of what had happened to him and a picture of his grave site. In June 1930, he moved to Boston to be with his oldest brother William, and to seek work as a fisherman. In the Spring of 1942, James was with the American Merchant Marine aboard the SS Ballot as part of Convoy PQ13. The Ballot was bombed on March 28, as the family had believed, but that wasn't the end of James's story. He was one of 15 crew members to survive in lifeboats and was picked up by the SS Induna. This ship was sunk two days later and once again James ended up in a lifeboat. He spent days injured and exposed to the icy Arctic Ocean before being picked up by a Russian minesweeper. He died in a Murmansk hospital a week later and was buried nearby.
