LITTLE CURRENT—The stories from the First World War are growing dim more than a century after the end of hostilities, but this Remembrance Day The Expositor has found just such a story that involved two volunteers from Little Current and area, William McGovern and Bill Richards, and an act of heroism.
William (Bill) McGovern was nicknamed ‘Bedaw’ because he began or ended oral statements with this unusual epithet.
His lifelong friend, Bill Richards was from the Green Bush. They both enlisted as part of the “Men ‘O the North”, the 227th Battalion.
Both men are long dead; Bill Richards’ death was a tragic one when a fire tore through the Green Bush farmhouse he shared with his brother Dan Richards and he was unable to escape, likely because he was an amputee dating from his wartime injury, which is part of this story. He died in 1959, outliving his friend William McGovern, who had saved his life so many years before, by almost two decades. William ‘Bedaw’ McGovern died in 1942. He was only 44.
The story that follows was written by long-time Toronto Globe and Mail reporter and columnist Bruce West and was published in the August 25, 1938 edition of the Globe and Mail, four years before William McGovern’s death and a year before the onset of the Second World War. It is republished here with the generous permission of The Globe and Mail, complete with its original headline, ‘Little Current Urchin Sees Dream Fulfilled.’
The ‘Mansion House’ the 1938 article references Mr. McGovern eventually owning has, for at least a half-century, been known as the Anchor Inn, a downtown Little Current landmark that is currently owned and operated by Denise and Chris Callaghan.
One of the Veterans’ Banners, honouring William ‘Bedaw’ McGovern, is this year appropriately mounted on the light standard closest to the Anchor Inn.
It is interesting that ‘Bedaw’ McGovern is an uncle (by marriage) of Linda Bowerman, the Little Current citizen who conceived of the Veterans’ Banners idea for Little Current, (after having seen the same successful tributes in Espanola) and this idea has spread to Manitowaning this year and is being seriously considered by Gore Bay and Mindemoya. Ms. Bowerman’s late aunt was Ella (Lockeyer) McGovern.
One of Bedaw McGovern’s grandchildren, Lisa Dorcich of North Bay, shared some other details with her cousin Linda Bowerman, who in turn passed them on the The Expositor.
Apparently Bedaw McGovern, like so many other young man in the days of the First World War, was so eager to enlist that he lied about his age, being only 16 or 17 when he signed up.
Mrs. Dorcich also noted that, from her mother’s recollections and family lore, that because Bedaw McGovern was such an excellent shot, he wanted to be assigned duties as a sniper. His friends allegedly talked him out of this military career choice because of the high casualty rate for snipers.
Mr. McGovern died in 1942 at just 44 years of age. Ms. Dorcich explains that, during hostilities, he got “one whiff” of mustard gas because he was “a bit slow putting his mask on and that seemed to be what destroyed his health over time and shortened it prematurely. He left my poor grandmother a widow with four children.”
