Today is ANZAC Day in New Zealand and Australia when those who served and died in wars are remembered. Ironically the date is not the day of the most celebrated victory but the occasion of the bloodiest battle for these two countries in World War I: Gallipoli – Australia lost 8,141 and New Zealand lost 2,779.
About half a mile from where I live is a little school: Stanley Road School that began in 1895. It has now closed, but the school buildings are used and maintained by the local rural community (mainly sheep, dairy, and cattle farmers).
In the school playground is a large American Tulip Tree (Liriodendron tulipifera). Kids used to play and climb in it from the turn of the 20th century. Are kids still allowed to climb trees?
In the year 2000 the community decided to plant an avenue of trees along the road past the school using grafts from the original Tulip Tree. There are 25 trees in all that I could count. They form a lovely avenue as you drive along the road when going to town. Each tree was planted by the family of a former pupil of the school killed in the First World War. The deceased soldiers as kids would have played in the mother tree.
The avenue also reminds us of the extent of loss in each little rural community. Twenty-five to die is a high number of kids from a single-teacher little country school. The section of road is known as the Peace Tree Avenue.
Weave a Web 
That’s beautiful, and sad. I certainly hope kids can still climb trees.
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Thanks. I suspect kids still climb trees! We aren’t that much unrelated to monkeys.
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True! I climbed some trees with my nephews last summer.
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This was a lovely tribute Bruce and just . ANZAC day and its significance is summed up so well by your phrase – ‘The deceased soldiers as kids would have played in the mother tree’.
We are considered ‘lucky’ because of where we were born, but it’s really what our ancestors stood and acted for which enabled us to live our lives. Always indebted.
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Thanks Matthew. It’s a solemn day here certainly, although once sunrise comes I find it all too quiet!
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Solemn indeed. Mi Papá murió en ANZAC day back in 2003 and I wrote about it in a post, which I still consider my finest post – only because of what his memories conjured in me. Your post was just so beautifully done Bruce. Really.
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Such a fitting tribute that hammers home to us the loss caused by war, especially that war. Lest we forget.
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Yes – huge numbers of deaths for such small populations.
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Gallipoli was utter heartbreak. The trees are lovely.
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Thank you, Cindy – sort of our Memorial Day.
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Planting of the avenue out of the mother tree is such a touching tribute to the lives cut cruelly short. War is a gobbler of lives, blind and deaf. It’s dance of death is impartial to all, as in Ukraine.
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Yes, the avenue was a great idea. Of course how quickly the country road becomes a highway, and will need to be widened!
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They have begun relocating the trees in places. Of course, it has limited uses.
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This is a touching stories, and that road looks realky great! Thank you Bruce🙂
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I love it. A sad story, but such a great tribute to those ‘kids.’
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Thanks Chel.
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Lovely living memorial. Kids do climb trees if they are not being supervised by helicopter parents.
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Parents who stop kids from climbing trees need to branch out.
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And get something else to do with their time!
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Exactly.
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Beautiful tribute. Very thought-provoking. What a story. Kids in my yard are allowd to climb trees but I think the schools would never allow it.
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I think you’re right – schools these days can’t let kids do much.
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That’s very moving Bruce.
My wife and I have been to Gallipoli and visited the Anzac cemetery there. That too was very moving.
And now we have Czar Putin waging hideous war on Ukraine…
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Einstein and T.S. Eliot were right – you end up where you started.
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