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It was a Sunday morning when the first group of ‘99’ men gathered to leave Brandon for Camp Valcartier to continue their training.  
 
They paraded from the Armoury to the Canadian Pacific depot to a waiting ten-car transport train.  
 
Thousands of well-wishers had arisen early, but there were no speeches only the sight of the Recruits quickly boarding the coaches with barely a smile for their distraught and weeping families.  
 
The train began to move, and a salute of fireworks reached up to the sky. The band played the National Anthem, drowning out the farewells from husbands to wives as they ran down the platform holding hands through the open car widows.  
 
Four mornings later the citizens again arose to say farewell to further recruits, many without uniform, as the 99th Battalion Band headed them.  
 
This time they marched from the Armoury to the Canadian National Station. There Lieutenant Colonel F. J. Clark inspected the men while the women wept, followed by handshakes, cheers, sobbing, and the turning of steel wheels while the Band continued to play martial airs.  
 
Mrs. Templeton, daughter of Brandon’s Judge Cumberland travelled to Camp Valcartier with her husband Major (Dr.) C. P. Templeton where he bade his young wife adieu.  
 
Alas she became ill and moved to Toronto, but died, a victim of Scarlet Fever.  
 
Source: Brandon a City by G. F. Barker.