Organize a relief train and send word to Wolfville and Windsor to round up all doctors, nurses, and Red Cross supplies possible to obtain. Not time to explain details but list of casualties is enormous,” read the telegraph that arrived at a Boston bank on Dec. 6, 1917. The telegraph that came from an American banker working in Halifax contained no details on the largest explosion mankind had ever seen up to that point. It didn’t tell of a city levelled and thousands killed, maimed and left homeless as a winter storm was coming. It just said ‘Help’. Within an hour the banker who received the telegram was meeting with the governor of Massachusetts. Within 10 hours, a train left Boston carrying, doctors, nurses, food, blankets and medical supplies. The next morning another train left Boston carrying enough medical staff and supplies from Harvard University to set up a 500-bed hospital. A year later, the rebuilding city sent a huge black spruce Christmas tree to Boston as a thank-you. Because a good turn shouldn’t be forgotten. On Sunday, John MacPherson was standing in his Purlbrook, Antigonish County, yard with his two mini-shelties looking at a big white spruce. He was wondering how the private contractor sent by the Department of Natural Resources had managed to climb the 13-metre tree and bundle it while still standing for transport to Boston. “You can see the yellow tie there – they’ll hook onto it there with a boom truck and lay it down on a transport truck as they cut it,” said MacPherson. At 10:30 a.m. on Nov. 17, Ethel Ann and John MacPherson’s yard will be a busy spot. The Antigonish Kinsmen will be handing out hot chocolate at a public ceremony that will culminate with staff and students from the environmental technologies program at the Nova Scotia Community College Strait Area Campus cutting the 43rd Christmas tree for Boston. For the MacPhersons, the white spruce was just a tree in the yard that their children’s tire swing hung from. Then last February, staff from Natural Resources knocked on their door and asked John if they could cut the tree to send to Boston. “I told them I had to talk it over with the wife,” said MacPherson. Their children, now 21 and 17, weren’t into tire swings anymore. So Ethel said yes. The tree will travel nearly 1,200 kilometres to Boston to be decorated for a Dec. 4 tree lighting ceremony that is watched by 20,000 people. “The kids think this is great,” said MacPherson of sending their tree to Boston. “And so do I.” About the Author The Chronicle Herald
Posted on: Sun, 09 Nov 2014 20:17:06 +0000