To assist in the deliberations Cornwall City Council is conducting with the site of the former Bob Turner Memorial Center, I believe that it might be helpful if council and the public knew that it was originally built as the memorial center, to honour the 4,000 Cornwallites, out of a population of 16,000, who either served in the Canadian Armed Forces or were directly involved in vital war industries and the 183 servicemen who lost their lives in World War II.
Royal Canadian Legion Chair A.W. Gammon said: “We already have a very fine memorial for our comrades who fell in the First Great War…it was therefore considered unnecessary to erect a similar one. It was felt, however, that a more practical manner would be to erect a permanent building to be used as a community center as an expression of our deep and lasting appreciation of their devotion to the cause of freedom.”
Ian Bowering
Cornwall