Mrs. Jessie Isobel Olga McCleery from Ottawa, Ontario, was the 1944 - 1946 National Memorial (Silver) Cross Mother. During the national Remembrance Day ceremony in Ottawa on November 11, 1944 - 1946, she laid a wreath at the base of the National War Memorial on behalf of all mothers who have lost a child in military service to Canada. She was the first Second World War bereaved mother to be selected.

On December 17, 1942, her son, Flying Officer Raymond Norman McCleery, was killed in action while serving with the Royal Canadian Air Force.