Charlotte Wood was born on 27 September 1861 in Chatham Kent and later emigrated to Canada. In 1914 eleven of her sons and stepsons served during the Great War (1914-1918) and five of them were killed. It is known her son Peter was killed near Vimy Ridge with the Saskatchewan Regiment and is among the 11,000 Canadians listed as having no known grave and her son Frederick was killed during the Battle of Mons in 1914.
In 1936 Charlotte Wood was the first to place a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Westminster Abbey in London on behalf of all Canadian mothers who lost sons during the Great War. In 1939, a few weeks after the start of the Second World War, she died and was buried in an unmarked grave in Winnipeg Brookside Cemetery and a gravestone was erected 60 years later.
Alan Malcher.
Alan Malcher 