Vincent
Ripple
Lost his eyesight at
Vimy Ridge a year ago
Returned to Simcoe Monday evening
Vincemt Ripple is the nephew
of Mrs. J. A. Calder of Simcoe, and when a lad visited her here and
got acquainted with many other lads his own age. He also acquired an
interest in Simcoe, in Canada, and things Canadian.
So when he heard that in
Simoce a Norfolk County Battalion was being recruited and trained to
go overseas, the desire to know something of what was going on
brought him back once more.
He attended a Sunday night
recruiting meeting in the Armories and his soul took fire. Next day
this fair-haired, slim, clean-limbed Yankee boy was in the uniform
of a British soldier, bound for the Great Adventure.
Fate overtook him at the
storming of Vimy Ridge.
Many of his companions-in-arms of the 133rd paid the ultimate price
there. Perhaps some might say his is the sharper cross; but
remembering Col. Mulloy, we say, No. A few scattering fragments of a
bursting shell met him in the face. They destroyed both his eyes;
otherwise left him unmarked.
On Monday night he got back
to Simcoe, having been accompanied from Liverpool by Pte. J. Norman,
another wounded returning Norfolk soldier.
The heroes were met at the
depot by the greatest crowd Simcoe has so far turned out to welcome
a returning soldier. Col Pratt and Mayor Sihler and almost everyone
else worth while was there.
More important that all
others in the mind of
Pviate Ripple was his mother from Niagara Falls, N.Y., where his
parents now live. His aunt, Mrs. Calder and
Rev. M. S. Fulton met the returning soldier in Toronto.
The blind boy, for he is
blind, though with one eye he can distinguish light from dark,
appears to be in good health, and he is certainly in brave spirits
He is to be given a year's
rest by the army authorities, on this side of the Atlantic, and is
then to go back to London, where at St. [Dunstan's] he will attend
the greatest vocational school for blinded soldiers so far achieved
in the world.
May a kindly fate temper all
the coming years of Private Vincent Ripple, and grant to him the
power to rise, as Colonel Mulloy did, superior to his great
misfortune. A grateful country must see to it that he, and those who
suffer as he does shall be deprived of no possible opportunity they
may desire.
