Tom St. Amand and Tom Slater
The Aamjiwnaang First Nation Cenotaph features three vertical stone columns atop a stone base. Inscribed on the centre column are the words “To our glorious veterans who have served our nation and its allies for peace and freedom—Lest We Forget.”
The side columns bear the names of two soldiers who fell in the First and Second World Wars: Fred Doxtator and Harley Williams.
They both died young and in different circumstances.
In late 1915, Fred Doxtator enlisted at age 19 with the 149th Lambton Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force. By April 1917, he had embarked for England as a member of the 25th Battalion. He arrived in France seven months later, but in ill health.
Doxtator was by then showing symptoms of the disease that would take his life. He was suffering shortness of breath, his laboured breathing punctuated with persistent coughing.
Despite his condition, Doxtator continued to fulfill his duties. On June 21, 1918, he became a sapper with the 4th Battalion, Canadian Engineers “B Company and two days later he at the front lines.
Two months later his fighting days were over. Too sick to fight, Sapper Doxtator was eventually invalided back to England. The diagnosis was grim: pulmonary tuberculosis.
He remained in an English hospital until the end of October when he was transported to the Cogswell Street Military Hospital in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
On Nov. 11, 1918, the world rejoiced as the Great War finally ground to an end. But on that day Ed Doxtator in Sarnia received a telegram stating that his son was dangerously ill. Four days later, Sapper Frederick Doxtator lost his battle to tuberculosis. He was 22.
At his funeral, Fred was given full military honours with members of the Great War veterans and Sarnia Citizens’ band in attendance. A firing squad paid its final respects to Sapper Doxtator before he was buried at the Aamjiwnaang First Nation Cemetery.
Years later, another Aamjiwnaang teenager enlisted. Fluent in English and Chippewa, Harley Williams was active in sports and enjoyed hunting and fishing.
He had a good job and a steady girlfriend, but because his brother was in the army Williams was eager to join as well. When he joined the Canadian Army in March of 1944 at the age 18 he did so with the full intension of returning to his job at the Morton Salt Company in Port Huron.
At basic training, he was assessed by an examiner who described the teen as “a rugged lad, good natured and strong . . . has an excellent Army attitude . . . should make a good rifleman.”
Private Williams embarked overseas on Oct. 12, 1944 and became a member of the Essex Scottish Regiment, Royal Canadian Infantry Corps.
But as the Allies advanced into Germany early in 1945 Private Harley Williams was killed on March 8 during the Battle of the Rhineland.
Exactly two months later the war in Europe was over.
No circumstances of Williams’ death were forthcoming. His parents received a telegram in April 1945, stating that Harley “was killed in action against the enemy in the Western European Theatre of War. We pay tribute to the sacrifice he so bravely made.”
Nineteen-year-old Harley Williams is buried in Groesbeek Canadian War Cemetery, Netherlands.
The names of Fred Doxtator and Harley Williams, two of Aamjiwnaang’s glorious veterans, are also inscribed on the Sarnia Cenotaph.