by Harry Mazmanian
Legion Branch 155 President
“In the month of August, Southampton Legion Branch 155 members Stew Shular, Rick Mattiussi, Peter McGuire and Harry Mazmanian decided to make some much needed repairs to the Southampton Cenotaph. The repairs were intended to restore a modicum of dignity to our cenotaph in response to many years of neglect.
With approval from the Town of Saugeen Shores, we started with the cracked stones at the bottom of the cenotaph. We removed loose stone from the voids and refitted each stone. We then reinstalled the stones with construction adhesive. The next day we repointed the mortar joints with new mortar.
We then focused our attention on the three plaques. All plaques were heavily tarnished. We removed the plaques from the cenotaph and took them to one of our homes. Using a homemade cleaning solution, we cleaned the plaques as best we could, a process which took several hours. The WWII plaque didn’t clean up as well as the other two plaques, but is much better than it was. We suspect it may have had a coating applied to it at one time. We then remounted the plaques on the cenotaph.
On August 27th, we cleaned the cenotaph stones. While we were working, one person stopped by and gave us $10.00 for coffee. Other people would just tell us they appreciate what we are doing. Some stopped to take photos, some took photos while driving by. But, sadly, one person didn’t know what the cenotaph represented.
In September, we will remove cracked and loose mortar from joints and repoint. The top of the cairn has lost the majority of the mortar over the years, similar to a house with a badly leaking roof. This will be repointed as well.
Below are some photos of the plaques before and after cleaning.”
