GUELPH/ERAMOSA – Of the 24 Guelph/Eramosa veterans who died during the First and Second World Wars, Rockwood’s final fallen soldier, Donald Fraser Titt, will soon have a street named in his honour.
After receiving the clerk’s report on July 12, council approved the use of the last unassigned name on the Rockwood cenotaph in honour of Titt.
“(We’ve) done a great job getting all those names up there,” Mayor Chris White said.
“We’re very proud to have done that, and now we’ll be looking for a new way to name streets.”
The name will be used for a private street in a new 50-townhouse development, set for north Rockwood. The roadway will be called Donald Fraser Lane PVT.
DONALD FRASER TITT
At a March heritage committee meeting, the committee passed a resolution directing staff to suggest the name to the developers.
On June 28, the applicant advised the township they had sided with the committee and were requesting formal approval from council to proceed with the street name.
According to a township report prepared by the township’s heritage committee, a project that began in 2012, Sergeant Donald Fraser Titt was born in Detroit but grew up in Rockwood.
In 1943, he enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force at the age of 18. Upon completion of basic training, he received his air gunner badge and was posted to England where he was later promoted to sergeant.
Titt never flew an operational mission. During a night navigation training flight in bad weather in October of 1944, his Halifax bomber crashed and burned on impact. All eight crew members were killed. Titt was 19.
Now that all of the names on the cenotaph have been placed on streets, White said the committee will be looking at protocol around naming future streets going forward.
“This is great,” said councillor Corey Woods, chair of the heritage committee.
“I think this is one of the things that we can say that all of the names are covered and go from there.”
The names of each of the 24 veterans can be viewed at the corner of Main Street South and Guelph Street, engraved on the Rockwood cenotaph.
