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This 12 cm tall teddy bear accompanied Canadian Lieutenant Lawrence B. Rogers
through much of the First World War.
Rogers, a farmer from Quebec, had enlisted and gone overseas in 1915,
receiving the bear a year later as a gift from his ten-year-old daughter, Aileen.
During his time in Europe as an army medic, Rogers was promoted and decorated for bravery,
receiving the Military Cross for carrying wounded comrades to safety while under heavy enemy fire.
He wrote often to his family, exchanging over 200 letters and postcards with them
After Rogers’ death at Passchendaele, Belgium in 1917,
his possessions were returned to his family.
In 2002, Aileen’s niece, Roberta Rogers Innes, rediscovered the teddy bear
in a family briefcase, along with the collection of wartime letters.
Rogers died before reading the final letter from his son,
displayed today alongside the bear at the Canadian War Museum.