John McCrae
| John McCrae | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
November 30, 1872 Guelph, Ontario, Canada |
| Died | January 28, 1918 (aged 45) Boulogne-sur-Mer, France |
| Occupation | Poet, physician, author, Lieutenant Colonel of the Canadian Expeditionary Force |
| Known for | Author of "In Flanders Fields" |
Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (November 30, 1872 – January 28, 1918) was a Canadian poet, physician, author, artist and soldier during World War I, and a surgeon during the Second Battle of Ypres, in Belgium. He is best known for writing the famous war memorial poem "In Flanders Fields". McCrae died of pneumonia near the end of the war.
McCrae was born in McCrae House in Guelph, Ontario to Lieutenant-Colonel David McCrae and Janet Simpson Eckford; he was the grandson of Scottish immigrants. His brother, Dr. Thomas McCrae, became professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins Medical School in Baltimore and close associate of Sir William Osler. His sister, Geills married a lawyer, Kilgour, and moved to Winnipeg.
He attended the Guelph Collegiate Vocational Institute. He was eventually promoted to Captain and commanded the company. He took a year off his studies at the university due to recurring problems with asthma.
Among his papers in the John McCrae House in Guelph is a letter he wrote on July 18, 1893 to Laura Kains while he trained as an artilleryman at the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, Ontario. "I have a manservant .. Quite a nobby place it is, in fact .. My windows look right out across the bay, and are just near the water’s edge; there is a good deal of shipping at present in the port; and the river looks very pretty."
He was a resident master in English and Mathematics in 1894 at the Ontario Agricultural College in Guelph.
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