There were 5,571, including 37 nurses, from the community of Brantford and Brant County who donned the uniform in the First World War. Of these, 608 gave their lives, 58 were reported missing, hundreds were wounded and 143 won decorations or were mentioned in dispatches.
The scale of the suffering and sacrifice was so large, the selflessness with which average men and women responded to the call was so inspiring, that people made a conscious decision early in the First World War that those who served must be remembered. The first commemoration on a grand scale was proposed in November 1917. The Brantford Expositor announced that the contract was let for the new monument to be erected in the Odd Fellows’ Plot at Mount Hope Cemetery and gave extensive coverage to the unveiling ceremony the following year on September 9, 1917.
Approximately 700 citizens gathered for the ceremony where Reverend Walter Cox, Grand Master of the Odd Fellows of Ontario, unveiled the memorial to the memory of the Odd Fellows of Brantford who made the extreme sacrifice in the Great War. The Union Jack was lifted from the memorial which stood 14 feet high and measured six feet wide at the base. Following the unveiling, four little girls fastened a huge wreath to a royal purple ribbon surrounding the memorial while the speaker paused amid a reverent silence.
