New book pays tribute to local soldiers with stories, photos.
Al McOrmond and Patrick Busby (L-R) proudly show off copies of Portraits of Valour, their new book featuring the stories and portraits of local Second World War veterans by the late artist Murray Saint, Busby's grandfather. The portrait is of McOrmond's father, Sgt. Kenneth McOrmond, a WWII and Korean War vet who is featured in the book.
Staff photo/CYNTHIA REASON
Murray Saint's mobile museum of veteran portraits, uniformed mannequins and wartime memorabilia made its first public appearance in five years this week at the launch of the late artist and local historian's new book.
Portraits of Valour, the stories and pictures of Toronto's WWII veterans, is a nearly 200-page tribute to some 33 local soldiers, most of whom Saint knew, grew up with in the Humber Bay and Mimico areas, and looked up to, said co-author Al McOrmond at Tuesday's launch event at St. Martin Catholic School in Mississauga.
"These are the guys he knew as a kid - like David Hornell and Fred Topham - they all grew up in Mimico within blocks of each other," he said of Saint. "Murray said to me one day that he started painting the portraits as his way of honouring these soldiers who did what he couldn't."
Despite his overwhelming desire to do his part, Saint was held back from fighting overseas in the Second World War by his flat feet. In the five-year span between 1945 and 1950, he joined the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force, but none would post him outside Canada - the farthest he got was Victoria.
So instead, he chose to honour those heroes who hailed from his neighbourhood - he painted colourful portraits from provided black-and-white photos, learned each soldier's story, and collected what artifacts he could from each (uniforms, medals, discharge papers, etc).
What resulted was a museum-worthy collection of wartime relics, said Saint's grandson Patrick Busby, who stepped in to help McOrmond finish Portraits of Valour after Saint's death in 2005.
"All his museum materials were in his house - his entire house was just full of it," he remembered with a laugh. "When we used to go to visit, we couldn't eat there because if there were six chairs at the table, three of them had mannequins in uniform in them."
Busby, now a high school guidance counsellor, also recalled being called upon to transport his grandfather's collection around to local schools, where Saint would showcase his portraits and teach students about the history of war from an uber-local perspective. In fact, the idea for Portraits of Valour first came at the urging of schools officials, who wanted a record of their local heroes' stories for students to reference in generations to come.
One such soldier profiled in the book is McOrmond's own father, Sgt. Kenneth V. McOrmond, a 35-year military veteran who served in both the Second World War and in Korea. He became of one of the more than 80 veterans Saint immortalized on canvas with acrylic over the years after the two befriended each other at their local legion.
It was that portrait of his dad, said McOrmond, that brought him together in partnership with Saint after his father's death.
"Shortly after my dad died, my mother told me that Murray was going to be at a park in Etobicoke at an art show showing his paintings, so I went to see my father's portrait," he said, noting that the two quickly fell into conversation about duplicating Saint's paintings, and the partnership was born. "Before I left that afternoon, I had committed with Murray to help him write a book."
Ten years later, that dream has finally become a reality - a feat both McOrmond and Busby said Saint would be enormously proud of.
"Murray would be thrilled," McOrmond said. "He was so patient and giving, it was great to work on this with him. I feel so bad that he's not here to see it."
Portraits of Valour will be available for sale through WD Publishing on Nov. 30. For more information or to order a copy, go to www.wdpublishing.com or call 1-800-668-4652.