Leaskdale presented each man with an orange, a gift that cost the villagers the large sum of forty dollars. Montgomery clipped an article for her scrapbook that mentions the first casualties of the Battalion. No doubt she followed the movements of the 116th throughout the war, where they earned the nickname "Umpty Umps" and distinguished themselves in Vimy, Passchendaele, Cambrai, and Mons. She would have known that, despite their tragic loss of Lt.-Col. Sharpe, the men continued to serve valiantly right through to the end, when they were assigned the final task of guarding the Brussels-Mons Road from unauthorized passengers. Did she see the mustering out of the troops in 1919 at the Toronto Exhibition grounds?

Lt.-Col. Sharpe and the 116th Battalion

The 116th Battalion shows up again and again in the scrapbooks, mostly through images of Col. Sharpe or his home in Uxbridge. From the images and clippings and the few references made in her journal, a story emerges of Sam Sharpe, local politician and peace-time militia man, who raised and led a whole battalion, became a hero in the trenches, suffered shell shock, and killed himself.