Poet, Canadian Army Officer. He is most recognized as a Canadian poet, who penned the immortal World War I poem "In Flanders Fields." Born into a family of Scottish Presbyterians, he was one of three children. By the age of 15, he was a first-class military cadet in an artillery regiment that was raised by his father, who was a successful businessman in the bakery business. He attended the Guelph Collegiate Vocational Institute but took a year off his studies due to recurring problems with asthma. While recuperating, he seriously began to write poetry. It was during this time that his first love Alice McCrae, no traceable relationship, died from a sudden illness shortly after they met. The pain of this grief can be seen his poems. During his college years, he had 16 poems and several short stories published in magazines. He graduated from the University of Toronto with a B.A. in 1894. Staying at University of Toronto, he entered medical school on a scholarship, graduating with Gold Medal honors in 1898. He tutored students to help pay for his tuition. After graduation, he joined his brother,Tom, who was also a physician, at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. Due to his academic achievements, he was offered a fellowship in pathology, which was offered as the same time as the start of the Boer War in South Africa. He enlisted to go to war, having come from an active military family, but the horrors of war made a deep impression on him. After the war, he resigned from the 1st Brigade of Artillery in 1904, being promoted to Captain and then Major. He was not involved with the military again until 1914, as he resumed his fellowship in pathology at McGill University in Montreal. Focusing on his medical career, he started in his own practice; being appointed pathologist to the Montréal Foundling and Baby Hospital in 1905; and being appointed physician to the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Infectious Diseases in 1908. He lectured in pathology at several hospitals and was a professor of pathology at the University of Vermont Medical College in Burlington and in clinical medicine and pathology at McGill University. He wrote extensively on medical subjects, including articles for the "Montreal Medical Journal" and "American Journal of Medical Science." He and his brother Tom contributed to "Osler's Modern Medicine," a 10-volume textbook published in 1909. In 1912 he co-wrote a pathology textbook. Besides writing, he often found the time to draw the landscapes of Scotland, the United States and South Africa. On August 4, 1914, Britain declared war on Germany and thousands of Canadians joined the military including him. He took his horse, Bonfire, with him. He enlisted as the Brigade Surgeon and Artillery Officer in the First Brigade of Canadian Field Artillery at the rank of major, second in command. In the Spring of 1915, he was treating the wounded for 16 horrible days in the trenches during the Second Battle of Ypres, which was near Flanders Fields. Beside performing his duties as physician, he also served on the battlefield in combat when needed. As he was once told, "This war will not be won with doctors, but with soldiers on the front lines." With the absence of the chaplain, he recited lines from memory from a Church of England's text at the battlefield burial service of his colleague, Lt. Alexis Helmer, who was killed by an artillery shell direct hit. This tragedy was his inspiration to write the poem "In Flanders Fields" the next day on May 3, 1915. He gave a voice to the dying. Shortly after, he was made Chief of Medical Services at McGill Canadian General Hospital in France, a tent-hospital of 1,560 beds covering 26 acres. His second from the last poem, "In Flanders Fields," became famous shortly after being published in England's "Punch" magazine in December of 1915, giving John McCrae a great deal of recognition for it. Even though he was offered various non-hazardous duties away from the front lines after using his popularity to successfully sell war bonds, he insisted on staying with his unit, continuing with his duties at the hospital. It was there he wrote his last poem, "The Anxious Dead." In January of 1918 he became ill with pneumonia, which was complicated with his chronic asthma. He was transferred to Number 14 British General Hospital for Officers. His condition became critical with the infection causing meningitis in era of no antibiotics. Four days before he died, he was honored by being the first Canadian appointed as consulting physician to the First British Army. John McCrae was then buried with full military honors. Since his poem became popular in Canada and other Commonwealth countries, France, Great Britain and the United States, the poppy is used, even into the 21st century, as a flower of remembrance of the military dead. The opening line of his poem resonates with many who fought in any war, "In Flanders Fields, the poppies blow, Between the crosses, row on row…"

He was buried at the Wimereux Communal Cemetery at Wimereux, France.

He is also honoured by a 'Monument' at the Essex Farm Cemetery at Boezinge, Belgium

and by a 'Cenotaph' inscription at the Woodlawn Cemetery at Guelph, Ontario, Canada.