Henry Jakeman, Veteran of the First World War, instigated the project to build a memorial in Bethany to commemorate local soldiers from the First and Second World Wars. Funds were raised from all of Manvers Township and Reverend William Piercy from Bethany United Church designed the cairn.
Thomas Hampton, a stonemason from Warsaw, Ontario, completed the fieldstone facade. Pirie Monuments in Peterborough supplied the granite plaque bearing the names of the fallen and the granite cap of the cairn with the inscription “Lest We Forget”. The four First World War rifles on the top of the memorial were donated by Henry Jakeman.
It was erected on Manvers Township property and dedicated on Remembrance Day 1965. The Royal Canadian Legion and a Millbrook band headed a parade down the main street to the new memorial. Col. Arthur Thorne took the By-Pass Salute. The dedication ceremony was conducted by Reverend Reg Rose of St. Paul's Anglican church, Bethany with Russell Honey, MP unveiling the tablet bearing the names of the fallen. The first wreath laid was “To the Sons of Manvers” and placed by Mrs. George Waddell, a local Silver Cross mother who lost her son, Alfred Waddell off the coast of Borneo. Alfred's navigator, Jack Woodward, died with him. There are no known graves, but both names are inscribed on a Singapore War Memorial and commemorated in the First World War Book of Remembrance at the Parliament Hill.
Information provided by Kathy Morton, President of Manvers Historical Society.
