Ernest Best, Duncan McRae, Frank Wilson and Edgar Smith in military dress
Description:
This is a lantern slide of Springfield College alums, (clockwise from back, right) Frank Wilson, Edgar Smith, Duncan McRae and Ernest Best in full military dress. All four alums came to Springfield College (then the International YMCA Training School) from Canada and served with the Canadian forces during World War I. Best, Wilson and Smith all served as officers in the Canadian YMCA War Service which provided support to the Canadian Forces overseas by providing guidance and training to arriving soldiers and offering recreational and educational opportunities as well as religious services to troops in Internment Camps. Best went on to become the president of Springfield College from 1936-1946, succeeding longtime president Laurence Doggett. Wilson and Smith both earned the rank of Captain and received honorable mention as a YMCA officer in WWI. Wilson went on to serve in England during WWII. McRae completed his graduate work at the Springfield campus in 1919, after serving as Lieutenant, then Captain, and finally Major of the Canadian Army, Infantry Division, from January 1916 to September 1917. After the war, he served as the physical director at the high school in Montreal. For more information on Ernest M. Best, see https://springfield.as.atlas-sys.com/agents/people/654. This slide is number 130 of a numbered collection of lantern slides depicting portraits of alumni of the YMCA International College of Springfield, Mass. who served during World War I.
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