Living History is an ongoing series showcasing just a small assortment of the more than 350,000 items housed at The Salvation Army Heritage Centre in Toronto. This month, we spotlight a sash prepared for a tragic memorial.

Early in the morning of May 29, 1914, the Canadian Pacific ocean liner Empress of Ireland was struck by a Norwegian coal boat. In less than 15 minutes, the huge vessel disappeared beneath the cold waters of the St. Lawrence River.

Aboard the Empress were 1,477 passengers and crew members, but only 450 passengers survived the disaster. Of the 1,207 who died, 840 were passengers—33 more than the number of passengers who perished on the ill-fated Titanic a little more than two years earlier.

On board the Empress were 192 Salvation Army members on their way to a congress in London, England. Of these, 167 Salvationists would never get there.

May 29 became known as the Army’s “Black Friday.” The Salvation Army in Canada lost almost the whole headquarters staff, as well as 29 of the 41-member Canadian Staff Band.

On June 6 of that year, a memorial service was held at Toronto’s Mutual Street Arena. “Behind the platform, rising tier after tier, sat the massed bands of Toronto, and bands from Guelph, Oshawa, Hamilton and Chatham, and on either side of them were the men and women soldiers of the Army,” reported the June 20, 1914, edition of The War Cry. “Amidst crowds that thronged the sidewalks, and filled every balcony and window along the route, and in some instances overflowed on to the roofs of houses, the bodies of our dead were conveyed to their last resting place in Mount Pleasant Cemetery.”

Among the archival holdings at the Heritage Centre is a hastily crafted sash that had been prepared for the magnificent and massive memorial service. These banners were likely hung over the vacant chairs where those lost would have been seated had they survived the tragedy. There are several pictures that show bandsmen wearing white sashes during the memorial. The Heritage Centre believes the white sashes with a red crown and cross in the collection are what was worn by the bandsmen at the memorial service in Toronto.

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