What are you giving thanks for today? I'm able to get outside that's what i'm
giving thanks for yes. Thank you.
[Reporter: Bonnie Allen] Jeane Tweten has come to terms with most pandemic restrictions
including the cancellation of many Remembrance Day ceremonies.
But the 97-year-old British Royal Air Force veteran won't give this up.
A visit to the veterans memorial with her son Reg and daughter Janet
to lay poppies on the graves of loved ones who served.
There you are my darling.
[Reporter] Including her husband.
She also thinks of those who never survived the war.
The ones that didn't come back.
I think of them.
[Reporter] This is a military family going back generations.
Including Tweten's father and uncles, her husband and his brothers
her sons and Tweten too.
She worked as a radar operator tracking enemy planes off the south coast of England.
In a way we were the first line of defense
against the Germans coming in to raid.
We not only plotted German planes coming in
we plotted our own planes going out and coming back in.
Oh, oh it was top secret.
We couldn't even talk about it for years after.
We never really learned much about it until we were in our late teens.
I was very surprised and very proud of her that because of her several lives were saved.
[Reporter] That pride is echoed by so many Canadian families.
Army veteran Gladys Kennedy turned a hundred this year.
Her family arranged an outside bagpipe ceremony to celebrate.
She worked at a military hospital during the Second World War
keeping medical records for injured soldiers.
I was proud of the fact that I could serve my country in that way.
She volunteered for service and she's been an active volunteer ever since.
And I think that's amazing.
She's a model Canadian in my opinion.
[Reporter] Gladys Kennedy is saddened that large public Remembrance Day ceremonies
like this won't happen this year.
Not because she wants the attention, but rather she wants to remind others
how people and countries came together to defeat evil.
It proved that we can do something about things that are unacceptable.
[Reporter] That sentiment is shared by the Tweten family.
Retired Major Reg Tweten has been visiting classrooms for decades
teaching children to appreciate their rights and freedoms.
All the sailors, the soldiers and the airmen gave away their tomorrows for our todays.
There won't be this kind of school ceremony in the midst of a pandemic.
But if there was, Major Tweten says he would tell children
that winning the war took a collective effort and sacrifice
and that the same holds true in order to combat the pandemic.
And I'd also ask them that have hope.
Can you put a poppy on there?
[Reporter] Jean Tweten hopes people will mark this Remembrance Day in their own creative way.
And...
Wherever you are you stand still and silent for two minutes.
It's the longest two minutes in the whole year.
My dear friend, my dear, dear friend.
[Reporter] She wants the nation to unite in that moment of silence.
Bonnie Allen, CBC News, Regina.