The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
In Flanders fields the poppies blow, Mother Nature's way of symbolizing the sacrifices made by soldiers in battle. In Nymegen, Germany, however, stands a different sort of wartime reminder for Creighton's Doreen Harvie. That's where her husband Alex, while stationed overseas for the Second World War, carved into a poplar tree his name and hometown of Birtle, Man. The remarkable part is that some six decades later, the towering tree still clearly bears the etching of the veteran, who passed away in 1993. "He did such a good job of the carving that the tree has grown with it," said Doreen. "I think he didn't know whether he was going to come back home." After the war, Doreen and Alex, better known by his nickname Sandy, moved to the local area, where he spent a lengthy career at HBMS. If the odds seem slight of Alex's carving withstanding decades, the story of how the couple found out about it is just as exceptional. Back in 1990, the Birtle Town Office received a letter from a Holland man whose friend had discovered the tree. "I am looking for Mr. Alex Harvie, who was with the Canadian Army during the Second World War," wrote H. de Nijs. "Mr. Harvie wrote his name on a tree in a monastery garden at Nymegen, a town near the German border. If he (was) killed in the war, I am sorry for writing this letter. It would be great if he is still alive." The office forwarded the letter to Alex's sister, Helen Haney, who still lived Birtle. She immediately contacted her brother with the exciting news. "He remembered doing it," said Doreen. "When he got off the phone, he said, 'Oh yeah, I remember doing that.'" The Holland man eventually began writing to Alex, in one letter noting that the tree was the only one he had seen that still bore a legible name. "He said there were a lot of trees with 'Canuck' and 'G.I.' and stuff like that, but that was the only one with a name he could make out," said Doreen. Although Alex never got the chance to travel back to see the tree, friends and relatives have done so, and Doreen hopes to some day follow in their footsteps. In the meantime, she will continue to cherish her photos and newspaper clippings of that special poplar tree thousands of kilometers from home.
