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Grand Forks' Priede named National Memorial (Silver) Cross Mother by Royal Canadian Legion

Roxanne Priede is this year's National Memorial Silver Cross Mother and will lay a wreath at the war memorial in Ottawa on Remembrance Day.
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Grand Forks’ Roxanne Priede has been named National Memorial Silver Cross Mother by the Royal Canadian Legion and will be laying a wreath at the National War Memorial in Ottawa on Remembrance Day on behalf of all mothers who have lost their children in service to the country.

Editor's note: More information, including more quotes from Roxanne Priede, added.

Grand Forks’ Roxanne Priede is this year's National Memorial (Silver) Cross Mother and will lay a wreath at the war memorial in Ottawa on Remembrance Day.

Priede was named last Thursday by the Royal Canadian Legion and is mother of Master Corporal Darrell J. Priede, who died in Afghanistan in 2007.

Each year, the Royal Canadian Legion selects a mother to lay a wreath at the National War Memorial on behalf of mothers who have lost children in the military, either in action or in the course of normal duty.

She said that the event was going to be nerve-wracking and emotional.

“It’s sad but an honour as well, of course representing my son and also to be able to stand and represent all mothers in Canada that have lost sons or daughters in the military,” Priede told the Grand Forks Gazette.

Roxanne Priede lost her son in a Chinook helicopter crash on May 20, 2007 – Darrell was serving as an imagery technician and she said he was a vibrant man.

“Darrell was just an amazing son,” Roxanne explained. “He was very fun-loving, always smiling, always ready for a joke, he was also very quiet. He stood back in the corner sometimes, listening and learning. He loved to travel, he enjoyed life to the fullest.”

Priede went on to say that Darrell was also a loving husband and great brother.

While the announcement was made last week, Priede has known for some time about being this year’s National Memorial (Silver) Cross mother.

“I received a phone call on May 1, I believe,” she recollected. “There’s a committee that looks over who they want for Silver Cross mother so they called me and asked me if I would consider being Silver Cross mother and of course, in the blink of an eye, I was ready to say, ‘Yes,’ but he said, ‘No, I’m going to give you the weekend to think it through and I want you to think about this. You need to do a bit of travelling and (you’ll) be representing mothers of Canada for the full year, so you need to be sure that it’s something you’d like to do.’ There wasn’t a moment that I thought I would decline it because it’s an amazing honour.”

Priede will head to Ottawa with husband John and will receive a gold enameled legion crest in a shadow box at a luncheon on Nov. 10 at the Fairmont Chateau Laurier in Ottawa.

The black train bridge in Grand Forks was renamed the Darrell J. Priede bridge back in May of 2011 in honour of Darrell.



Karl Yu

About the Author: Karl Yu

After interning at Vancouver Metro free daily newspaper, I joined Black Press in 2010.
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