After training, Herbert was sent to England and on to the 3rd Labor Battalion in France, in early 1916. On April 31, 1916 he was sent to Liverpool to the hospital with Tonsillitis and was discharged from the hospital on August 8, 1916.
Herbert was sent back to France and after some time the Army found out that he was really 53 years and sent him back to Canada, to a convalescence home to be processed for discharged from the Army. The discharge was granted on May 23, 1918 under medial conditions.
After getting out of the Army and seeing that there was no future working the farm, Herbert found a job in the summer of 1918, with W. A. Black of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, as a gardener. He soon rose to Head Gardener and won hundreds of blue ribbons and silver cups for Mr. Black. To say the least, Mr. Black was very well pleased with Herbert. Where this talent with flowers came from, who knows,
but there it is!!!In 1923, Herbert moved to Zion, Illinois, but why I don’t know. At Zion, with the recommendation that he had from Mr. Black, he soon was running the Zion Gardens as Head Gardener.
On September 1, 1931, Herbert’s wife Florence, died, and he soon moved to South Gardiner, Maine where he went into business with George Crossman at Hillside Gardens. Herbert went back and forth between South Gardiner and Zion for some years, as his two sons were living in Zion. As a young child, Gene, (Writer.) remembers selling flowers for his grandfather, along the Sheridan Road in Zion, this was about 1940-41.
Herbert suffered a stroke about 1942. His right side of his body was affected, but there was nothing wrong with his mind. Herbert lived for a while with his son, George at 3119 Elim Ave., but Gene thinks he was not happy with all of us children around all the time, so he moved in with his other son, Lewis and Lewis’s wife Lois. Gene remembers going over to Aunt Lois’s home after school and taking care of Grampie, until Uncle Lewis could get home from work. Grampie taught Gene how to play chess, and Gene remembers playing chess with Gramp’s a few weeks before he died on December 21, 1950 at age 85 years old.
Gene remembers Herbert Leslie Maynard as a man who really loved life.