William Hagyard

Looking straight ahead as you enter you will see the grave of William Hagyard. Bill enlisted in the RCAF at age 18 and was eventually stationed at a base outside London. On the night before his final mission, he took the train to London and met his childhood friend Ivan Penfold. The next day his aircraft was shot down over the English Channel. He was the first fatality from the Perth area in WW2.

Like many veterans whose body was never returned from war, markers and monuments were place as a memorial in local cemeteries.

Susan Best wrote this about her "Uncle Bill" ... "Flight Sergeant William Dewey Hagyard was the first fatality in the Perth area in WWII. He enlisted in the RCAF at age 18 and was eventually stationed at a base outside London. On the night before his final mission, he took the train to London and met his childhood friend Ivan Penfold. The next day his aircraft was shot down over the English Channel. There was a report that Dutch fishermen were in the area.

My Grandparents lived with the hope that they had rescued him and he was in hiding, or that he had been taken a Prisoner of War. He was declared Missing in Action, and then after sufficient time had passed at the end of the War, he was officially declared dead. When Ivan returned home, he visited my Grandparents and told them how fun he and Bill had that night in London. When my Uncle was a young boy, my Grandfather (Dr. Harold Hagyard) had removed his tonsils and kept them in a jar with formaldehyde in his office. My Mom (Nora Wickware) said it gave them some comfort that they had a small part of him to bury."

Ivan Penfold, who would become a Sheriff and eventually a Lanark County Judge passing in 2006 and is also interred in Elmwood.