The stories of some of Langley's war dead will be on display at the Murrayville Hall this Remembrance Day – including the story of a family that lost three sons in six months, and the province's first Silver Cross Mother.
Sandra Broad and Darlene Poitras are volunteers who have pulled together everything they can find about the veterans buried and commemorated in the Murrayville Cemetery, where one of Langley's two original cenotaphs stands.
In 2023, Poitras attempted to identify every single veteran buried in Murrayville, counting up 446 people either buried or commemorated there. A handful are buried in the old, Victorian-era original section of the cemetery, but the largest number are in areas set aside for veterans burials later, close to the cenotaph that was built in the 1920s.
"It's been a true labour of love," said Broad.
Many of those veterans survived the war and lived full lives after returning home.
Some are easily identifiable, because their headstones give their ranks and mention their service, but others were buried with markers that make no mention of their time in uniform, the women say.
From months of research, this year Poitras and Broad put together 10 boards of information and photos about various Langley individuals who served and, in most cases, died in combat in the First and Second World Wars.
One of those stories is that of the Kimmel family.
On July 20, 1944, the Langley Advance reported that three of the Kimmel's five children serving in uniform were on the casualty lists. Their parents had received telegrams on the same day in early July about two of their sons.
Gordon Leroy Kimmel of the Winnipeg Rifles died on June 8, just after D-Day, having been declared missing and taken prisoner. Richard Kenneth Kimmel of the Regina Rifles died just 10 days later. Both were buried in Canadian war cemeteries in France.
Their brother Clifford Howard Kimmel of the Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment died during fighting in Italy that winter, on Dec. 5.
The family was reported as living in East Langley at the time when their sons were reported killed or missing in action, but they had moved and settled in multiple places over the years, with stints in tiny B.C. towns like Tete Jaune and Albreda. In 1939, Sylvia and her husband Harry moved to Langley. They had a large family, with 11 children in total, and their oldest children, including Clifford, Richard, and Gordon, were adults when the war broke out.
The elder Kimmels were living on Gray Road (now 84 Avenue) at the time they got the news. Two telegrams, about Gordon and Richard, arrived on the same day in July.
Two of the family's other children were in uniform, including a daughter, Dartha, who served in the Canadian Women's Army Corps. Sylvia was a Red Cross worker on the home front, and was honoured for her work for that organization.
After their loss of three sons, little is recorded about the Kimmel family, until 1961, when Sylvia became the first British Columbian to be chosen as a Silver Cross Mother.
Starting in the 1930s, the Royal Canadian Legion chose a mother to represent all those who had lost children to war at the Remembrance Day services in Ottawa. For decades, local Ottawa mothers were chosen, but in the 1950s, Legions began selecting women from all across the country.
Sylvia, who had moved to Mission in 1954, was chosen to go to Ottawa that year. She and her husband Harry were guests of the Governor-General.
According to multiple sources, both the Mission and Langley legions made sure Sylvia was equipped with a good coat for the trip, but on arrival in Ottawa, it was no match for the freezing Ontario winter.
Harry and Sylvia headed to the Eatons department store to purchase a new coat. While talking with the sales clerks, the staff learned she was the Silver Cross Mother, and offered her any coat she wanted, free. Sylvia continued browsing for a wool coat, until the staff steered her towards the fur coats and helped her select a mink.
The same year Sylvia served as Silver Cross Mother, the government of British Columbia named three geographical features after the three Kimmel brothers.
Mount Kimmel, Kimmel Glacier, and Kimmel Creek are all located east of Wells Gray Provincial Park, and northwest of the family's previous home at Albreda.
The Langley Advance reported that Sylvia died, age 75, in 1969 in hospital in White Rock.
According to her obituary, she was survived by her husband Harry, three sons, five daughters, 27 grandchildren, nine great-grandchildren, and three great-great grandchildren.
