John Babcock, the last surviving Canadian veteran from the First World War, in a 2007 file photo near his home in Spokane, Washington.JOHN LEHMANN
Jack Babcock never saw No Man's Land, or the poppies in Flanders Field; did not fight at Vimy Ridge, or at Passchendaele; never flew a biplane in the skies over Europe; never attacked a U-boat, or a Zeppelin.
In 1916, he volunteered for the Canadian army, another Ontario boy eager to leave the family farm to see the world. The late discovery of his tender age - he was just 15 1/2 - saved him from being ordered to the trenches in France. The disappointment he felt then was tempered over the years by the knowledge that legions of his peers were cut down in their youth.
More than 60,000 Canadians died in the Great War, a terrible toll from which emerged in this land a greater sense of nationhood. Mr. Babcock escaped the bloodletting with the signing of the armistice halting "the war to end all wars."
Seeking opportunity, he settled in the United States, where he emerged from obscurity decades later as the last known Canadian veteran of the First World War.
The unrequested burden of representing all the soldiers, sailors and airmen who served in the conflagration fell to a man whose war record, as he readily admitted, reflected little more than a youth's eagerness for adventure.
"I didn't do any fighting," he said.
For all the killing, for all the slaughter, Mr. Babcock never fired a shot in anger.
Although he did not see action, he proved a most worthy representative of his brave generation.
He entertained visiting Canadian dignitaries, including cabinet ministers and military officers, at his home in Spokane, Wash. The centenarian willingly accepted as his duty the responsibility to speak with all reporters and military historians keen for insight on his wartime experience. He did so with good humour, even as his hearing failed in recent years, making conversation difficult.
Mr. Babcock readily acknowledged the importance of youth serving their country in uniform although he warned against the savagery of battle.
"I hope countries think long and hard before engaging in war, as many people get killed," he once told an interviewer from Veterans Affairs Canada. "What a waste, not to mention the relatives who are left to mourn."
He politely declined any suggestion his death be marked by a state funeral, as he felt his own contributions were not worthy of such an honour. It was said his wish was to have his ashes scattered in the mountains.
A vibrant man well into his 11th decade, Mr. Babcock golfed until recently and regularly attended church. He had brilliant blue eyes, their clarity all the more striking for his shock of thick white hair. He attributed his longevity and his positive outlook to his second wife, 29 years his junior, who doted on him. He was a rare man to have celebrated a 30th wedding anniversary more than once.
Two years ago, he regained his Canadian citizenship, which he lost when he became a U.S. citizen in 1946.
John Henry Foster Babcock, who was born in the final months of the reign of Queen Victoria, enlisted to serve King and Country under her grandson, George V.
His prosperous and hard-working father, James Babcock, of German ancestry, owned a sawmill and a farm on which he raised cattle in Frontenac County, Ontario. He had five children when his wife and sixth child both died in childbirth. After marrying Isabelle Anne Foster, a woman of Irish stock 10 years his junior, he fathered five more children. Jack was his eighth child and third son.
The family's fortunes suffered when James Babcock was killed felling a tree in March, 1907. Jack was six. The family lost the farm, although the boy remained to work as a servant for the new owners.
He remembered being with an older half-brother when approached by an army lieutenant and sergeant in 1916.
"They were hard up for men," Mr. Babcock told me five years ago. "They asked me if I would like to enlist and I said, 'Sure.' So, they signed me up. The next Monday morning I walked to the little town of Sydenham about 10 miles away. There were about 35 men who had been recruited and we drilled in the town hall."
(Albert Manily Babcock enlisted three weeks after Jack. He was serving in France with an engineering unit when injured. "He was building a narrow-gauge bridge across a big shell hole," Jack Babcock said. "He got buried up to his hips in sand and had to get help to get out. He came back home, had a nervous breakdown." After studying at McGill University in Montreal, he became a minister.) Jack Babcock's enlistment papers, dated Feb. 4, 1916, describe his "apparent age" as 18, even though they gave his correct birth date, 1900.
Standing 5 feet, 4 1/2 inches, he signed as Foster Babcock in a schoolboy's uncertain scrawl. He was assigned to the 146th Overseas Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force.
Mr. Babcock was posted to the armoury at nearby Kingston, Ont. He once recalled marching down Princess Street, where he was embarrassed to have been spotted by an uncle - wearing long pants that did not reach his ankles. He was then sent to the base at Valcartier, Que., where he underwent a physical.
"I was fit but I was underage," he said. "But for some reason or another my name wasn't posted with those who were turned down, so I put my pack on and got on the train for Halifax. Of course, the company commander, who knew my age, had me step aside when I was ready to get on the boat."
Instead of joining the men overseas, Mr. Babcock wound up toting freight on the docks.
"I didn't care for that. When they called for 50 men to go to the Royal Canadian Regiment, I volunteered. When they asked me how old I was, I said 18."
The voyage overseas lasted nine days. Mr. Babcock remembers his troopship being escorted through U-boat waters by a light cruiser and three destroyers.
Once again his official documents betrayed him, however, and the eager but underaged soldier was dispatched to a Boys' Battalion at Bexhill-on-sea in Sussex, where non-commissioned officers prepared the youngsters for eventual service in France.
"They drilled us for eight hours a day," he said. "We probably had the best drill outfit in the Canadian army. That's all we did. We weren't particularly fond of it."
The only action he saw in the war was a donnybrook at Kinmel Park Camp in North Wales.
"We were there when the armistice was signed" on Nov. 11, 1918, he said. "We got into a beef with some British soldiers and they armed themselves with rifles and bayonets. One fellow got a little obstreperous and they stuck a bayonet through his thigh."
(Kinmel Park was the site of an infamous riot and mutiny by Canadian soldiers dissatisfied with delays in being returned home. Five were killed and 23 wounded in unrest on March 4 and 5, 1919.) A fortnight later, the acting lance corporal was back in Canada. "Spent two days in Halifax, two days in Quebec City, and one day in Montreal, and then I landed home."
At the time Mr. Babcock reminisced about the armistice in 2005, he was one of only three living Canadians to have been in uniform on that day.
He worked as a labourer in Canada before emigrating to the United States, where he joined the army in 1921. His expertise on the parade field earned him promotions and he was soon a sergeant. He left after three years in uniform.
He then found jobs as an electrician, a trade he learned in the army. He later owned his own businesses in oil and natural gas, completing his working life at age 87 in the employ of his son's waterworks equipment business.
He saw great changes in his lifetime, even at his family's Ontario farm. In 1955, aerial photographs revealed the farm as the site of a meteorite impact some 450 to 650 million years ago. An Ontario government plaque today marks the Holleford Crater.
Mr. Babcock's first wife, Elsie, whom he married in 1932, died in 1976.
Some months later, he proposed to one of her caregivers, Dorothy (Dot) Farden, a 47-year-old nurse.
"When I found out how old he was," she said, "I said no way."
Her concern was his advanced age. She did not want to attend a funeral too soon after a honeymoon.
Rebuffed, her septuagenarian suitor persisted. He suggested they try dating.
"He said, 'You like to dance, I like to dance. You like to golf, I like to golf. You like the outdoors, I like the outdoors.' " A second marriage proposal was accepted, though the bride insisted her groom promise to live at least another decade.
They celebrated their 33rd wedding anniversary on Dec. 26.
Mr. Babcock made the most of his longevity, earning a high school diploma by correspondence at age 95.
He became the last known surviving Canadian veteran after the death in May, 2007, of Percy Dwight Wilson, aged 106.
Mr. Babcock's death leaves Frank Woodruff Buckles, who turned 109 on Feb. 1, as the sole surviving U.S. veteran of the Great War.
On his birthday last July, Mr. Babcock enjoyed one of his favourite treats - long-cut french fries served with tartar sauce.
In recent years, he received several honours, including a commendation from Canada's veterans affairs minister in 2008.
As well, the Royal Canadian Regiment named him regimental patriarch. It was reported he marked the occasion by belting out O Canada .
Jack Babcock was born on July 23, 1900, on a farm at Holleford, Ont. He died on Feb. 18 at his home at Spokane, Wash. He was 109. He leaves his second wife, Dorothy, known as Dot, whom he married on Dec. 26, 1976. He also leaves Dot's two adult sons, Eric and Marc Farden. From his first marriage, he leaves John H.F. Babcock Jr., of Newport, Wash., and Sandra Strong, of Hamilton, Mont. He also leaves 16 grandchildren and several great-grandchildren. He was predeceased by his first wife, Elsie, who died in March, 1976, after 44 years of marriage. He was also predeceased by a grandson, Christopher Babcock, a junior high school teacher who was killed, aged 25, during a rebel attack in El Salvador in 1989.