18th. Battalion Wedding

 

Apparently whirlwind romances happen just before a soldier leaves for the battlefield. “The London Advertiser” has a piece dated November 12, 1914 on a wedding in London, Ontario of Private Sydney Wetherell Bryant to  Elizabeth Drouillard. Both were from Windsor.

    “About 1000 people went to the barracks this morning to see a military wedding, in which the 1,100 soldiers of the Eighteenth Battalion participated, when Re. Arthur Carlisle, chaplain of the battalion, in his fall Episcopal robes, married Miss Elizabeth Drouillard and Private Sydney  Wetherell Bryant, of “D” Company.
      Lieut.-Col. E.S. Wigle and his full provisional staff of officers of the first militia division headquarters, were present at the ceremony. The soldiers were drawn up in an open square on the parade ground just outside the fence around the barrack’s building. This arrangement was largely due to the fact that a moving picture man from Detroit had to have the sun at his back to get a good picture of the affair(I wonder if the film is still around or destroyed?).
(continuing further along)
       The boys of “D” and “C” Companies all of Windsor, under the command of Captain A.B. Lang, left nothing undone to see that Private Sidney Wetherell Randall did not forget the day of his wedding. Hardley had he reached the fence, through which he made his exit with his bride to reach the officers’ mess, when a detail of men showered them with rice.
       The boys also turned over to Captain Laing the sum of $47.42, which was given to the bride as the donation of the fellow soldiers of Private Bryant. Another gift from the battalion contained a check, but the amount of it was not given out.
As quartermaster of the battalion Captain Parkinson took a long blank form over to the bridegroom after the ceremony, and he was compelled to sign his name beneath a line, which read:

                                                                  “Issued, One Bride”

photo: The London Advertiser, November 12, 1914