Canadian solider killed in Korea finally gets visit from family

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Pte. Elwin Herman Goodwin left Nova Scotia as a kid and never returned to the province he loved.

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But, as they say, you can take the kid out of Nova Scotia, but you can’t take Nova Scotia out of the kid. He might have been thousands of miles away but never really left the place.

For almost three quarters of a century, the remains of this killed-in-action Canadian war hero have been buried in Korea, thousands of miles away from family and his beloved maritime paradise.

That will change this Remembrance Day.

His sister is coming to him for the first time, and she’s bringing the best of Nova Scotia with her.

“I have always wanted to visit his grave,” 80-year-old Sharon Dulong of Belleville, N.S., told The Toronto Sun. “It’s finally going to happen.”

She and her niece, Rhonda Hines-Wiseman, a piper, boarded a flight Nov. 8 for Busan, Korea — at the invitation of the East Asian nation’s government — so they could attend a special ceremony at the United Nations Memorial Cemetery where Goodwin and so many of his comrades are buried.

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“Elwin Goodwin was killed in action in Korea on Oct. 4, 1951, serving with the Princess Patricias Canadian Light Infantry,” 90-year-old veteran and Korean War historian Vince Courtenay told the Sun.

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He was just 20.

Courtenay said he was shot to death during close combat at Hill 187 where “the losses were by far the highest suffered in one day by any Canadian Army unit in Korea,” with 26 soldiers killed in action.

Goodwin was one of them. And one of 376 Canadians buried in this cemetery.

When his sister pays her respects “it will be the first time that a family member prays at his grave in the 73 years since his burial on Oct. 10 1951.”

Sharon can’t believe it, either. His death and that no one had ever been able to visit his resting place has left a huge hole in her life.

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“I was six years old when he died in action,” she said from her home in Nova Scotia. “It seems like it was yesterday.”

While just a child when he left, she remembers him so well, and he has always been a part of her and her family’s life.

“My mother made sure of that,” she said. “She always spoke of him as if he was alive, and he was always part of all of our holidays.”

Sharon has done the same with her kids and grandkids. But getting to Korea to pay their respects was no easy thing for a working-class family.

This was a dream that came through thanks to Courtenay, who served in the same position in Korea as the Toronto Sun’s founding editor Peter Worthington, and remembers running across him in battle there. The two remained friends until Worthington’s death in 2013.

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Courtenay and his wife gave up their seats on the flight to Korea so Sharon and Rhonda could make the trip.

“I think it’s important that she goes,” he said. “I know she is very excited about it.”

Sharon said she plans to pay respect to all of the Canadians buried next to her brother. She personally knows the suffering each and every one of their families have gone through.

She will be there for all of them.

Sharon and I had a very emotional conversation. Eyes were not dry on either end of the phone as we talked about her brother and all the veterans who died in Korea or any battlefield. As a columnist, it was an honour to speak with her and to write this story.

Fighting tears, Sharon told me, she hasn’t been able to sleep. She said she will be representing all of her family and especially her now deceased parents, Eva and William Goodwin, and her brother, Patrick, who died in a lobster fishing accident.

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Life has taken much from Sharon. She’s pleased Elwin’s sacrifice is being honoured now.

“We called him Bud,” she said of her older brother. “He was always great with me. He liked to joke a lot.”

Given that he loved Nova Scotia, Sharon is bringing a special stone from the beach of the Atlantic Ocean.

Cyrille LeBlanc, of Wedgeport Legion Branch 155, suggested Sharon bring the stone and her niece, Rhonda, went to work on it.

“Central Argyle, N.S., is a very small fishing community; someone mentioned a beach stone,” said Rhonda, who knew local artist Carla Spinney was famous for her painted stones.

“I had found a letter dated July 4, 1951 that (Elwin) had written to a close first cousin indicating how he missed Irish mossing that summer” so “I asked Carla to paint a lighthouse and a skiff which would have been there on an island called White Head located in Lobster Bay.”

What Carla painted was beautiful and would have meant something to Bud.

Perhaps it could be kept at a museum or at the Canadian Embassy so it could be brought to future Remembrance Day ceremonies.

Either way, they will never remove Nova Scotia from Bud’s heart, said Sharon, who, with Rhonda and her bag pipes, will pay their respects to a great Canadian who has been away for so long.

Its true Pte. Elwin Goodwin can’t go home. But home is coming to him.

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