With Remembrance Day coming up on Friday, it seems like a good time to take a look at a famous Canadian, John McCrae. As you’ll see he was an amazingly hard-working, dedicated, and talented man who left a legacy of remembrance for the sacrifices made by so many.

Poet

John McCrae is most well-known for the poem “In Flanders Fields” written during the First World War, the day after the death of his close friend Lt. Alexis Hannum Helmer. It was first published in Punch magazine (December, 1915) and posthumously in the collection In Flanders Fields and Other Poems (1919).

McCrae was born in Guelph, Ontario in 1872, the descendant of Scottish immigrants. He began writing poetry while a young student and had 16 poems and several short stories published in Canadian and British publications while at university. After becoming a doctor he continued to write poetry and was a member of several social groups in Montreal, including the Shakespearean Club, the Pen and Pencil Club, and the University Club of Montreal, which he helped found along with his friend the writer Stephen Leacock.

Physician

McCrae was the first Guelph student to win a scholarship to the University of Toronto. There he obtained his undergraduate and medical degrees. He worked at Toronto General Hospital, Johns Hopkins Hospital, McGill University, the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Infectious Diseases, Montreal General Hospital, and the Royal Victoria Hospital. He was the first Canadian to be appointed consulting surgeon to the British Army and was inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame in 2015 for his contributions to the field of pathology.

Teacher

During his university studies McCrae was forced to take year off due to severe asthma, so he taught English and Mathematics at the Ontario Agricultural College in Guelph. He also tutored other students while in medical school and as a pathologist he lectured at McGill and the University of Vermont Medical College in Burlington.

Writer

McCrae wrote extensively for medical journals. Both he and his brother Thomas contributed to a 10-volume textbook published in 1909 by William Osler, one of the founders of Johns Hopkins Hospital and often called the Father of Modern Medicine. With J. George Adami, McCrae co-authored A Text-book of Pathology for Students of Medicine (1912), an 878-page volume.

When at the front during World War I McCrae took his horse Bonfire and wrote letters from the horse to his nieces and nephews, signing them with a hoof print!

Artist

McCrae made pencil sketches of scenes during his travels, mostly in South Africa, the United States and Scotland, and also on a canoe expedition to Hudson Bay in 1910.

Soldier

John McCrae joined the Highland Cadet Corps at age 14 and earned a gold medal as the best-drilled cadet in Ontario. At 17 he joined the militia field battery commanded by his father Lieutenant-Colonel David McCrae. At university, he was a member of the Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada. McCrae served in the Boer War from 1899 to 1900. He resigned from the military in 1904, but when Britain declared war on Germany in August 1914, he was quick to enlist. He was appointed Medical Officer in the 1st Brigade, Canadian Field Artillery.

During the Second Battle of Ypres (April 22 to May 25, 1915) — when he wrote “In Flanders Fields” — McCrae spent 17 days tending wounded soldiers under horrific circumstances. He was then transferred to No. 3 (McGill) Canadian General Hospital in France where he was Chief of Medical Services. In the summer of 1917 he suffered severe asthma attacks and bouts of bronchitis. In January 1918 he died of pneumonia and meningitis at the age of 45 and was buried with full military honours.

Before John McCrae died, “In Flanders Fields” had already become very popular and been used on billboards advertising Victory Bonds. Today in many countries the poppy remains the symbol of remembrance for the war dead.

Sources

• “John McCrae” via Poetry Foundations
• “John McCrae” via Veterans.gc.ca
• “John McCrae” via The Canadian Encyclopedia

Picture books you might be interested in:

• World War I
• World War II
• Internment Camps
• Remembrance Day