Private John William Cumming and Private Marshall Ross Cumming
Two new names of First World War veterans have been added to the war memorial at Sunny Brae and will be recognized during the Remembrance Day service. This brings the total to 51 names of First World War veterans and 49 Second World War veterans for a total of 100.
The names of First World War veterans Private John William Cumming and Private Marshall Ross Cumming, brothers from Lower Caledonia, will be unveiled during the service which will begin at 2 p.m.
John William Cumming, known as John Willie or Jack, was born August 5, 1890, at Lower Caledonia, Guysborough County, a son of John Alexander Cumming and Isabell Barkley MacQuarrie.
He was 27 years of age and a lumberman when, at Truro, he signed up on April 10, 1917 to participate in the First World War. He served approximately two years in England with the Canadian Forestry Corps.
Shortly after the war he moved to the state of Montana where he worked as a miner in the silver mines. In 1948 he fractured his spine and became a paraplegic. He remained unmarried during his lifetime and was 68 years old when he died in Helena, Mont., in 1958.
Marshall Ross Cumming was born on October 7, 1897 at Lower Caledonia, a son of John Alexander Cumming and Isabell Barkley MacQuarrie. He was a brakeman on Canadian Government Railways and was 20 years old when, at Aldershot, NS, on May 28, 1918, he signed up to participate in the First World War. He served in Bramshott, England, with the 17th Reserve Battalion until May 1919 and then served in France with the Canadian War Graves Detachment until July 19, 1919.
After the war, Marshall worked in lumber camps in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. He later worked at the Halifax Shipyards as an iron worker.
In 1934 he married Catherine Cantelo of PEI and they had one child, Gloria Anne Cumming.
Marshall was 79 when he died at his home in Bible Hill in 1976.
The Remembrance Day service will begin at 2 p.m. and the guest speaker will be Pictou East MLA Tim Houston. Lunch will follow at the IOOF Hall.