Kenora Great War Project

 

Personal Details
Date of BirthJanuary 28, 1892
Place of BirthKeewatin, Ontario
CountryCanada
Marital StatusSingle
Next of KinJoseph Kinney, Kenora, Ontario
Trade / Callingtrainman
ReligionRoman Catholic
Service Details
Regimental Number439106
Service Record Link to Service Record
Battalion52nd Battalion
ForceCanadian Expeditionary Force
BranchCanadian Infantry
Enlisted / ConscriptedEnlisted
Address at EnlistmentKenora, Ontario
Date of EnlistmentFebruary 27, 1915
Age at Enlistment23
Theatre of ServiceEurope
Prisoner of WarNo
Survived WarYes
Death Details
Date of DeathNovember 23, 1960
Age at Death69
Buried AtMountain View Cemetery, Thunder Bay, Ontario
PlotBlock 116 Grave 11

Kinney, Frank

Frank was the son of Lea (Villeneuve) and Joseph Kinney and was born in 1892 Keewatin Ontario. Frank grew up in a large family of 2 sisters and 4 brothers.  When Frank enlisted in 1915, he was a trainman for the CNR. Two other brothers (Thomas James and Joseph Jerry) also saw service in WW1. Frank signed up in February 1915 and joined the 52nd Battalion.   For a few weeks in March 1915 he was with the 44th Battalion but then returned to the 52nd Battalion for the remainder of the war.   Frank’s service record shows he was in England in December 1915 and then saw action in France.   Throughout his time in WW1, Frank suffered repeated bouts of bronchitis, eventually referred to as chronic bronchitis.   Tuberculosis was suspected when he was returned to Canada in November 1917. The Kenora newspaper reported that Frank and two other local soldiers returned by train from Halifax after having seen a long period of service at the front.     A week later the paper reported that Frank had been a member of the famous 52nd Battalion and that Battalion had been at the front for over two years.   Frank was admitted to the Manitoba Military Convalescent Home in Tuxedo M on 22 November 1917 and was discharged in February 1918.

After Frank returned from the war, he returned to Kenora and then moved to Fort William by the spring of 1919. Frank is shown on the 1921 census as aged 24, a roomer, living at 141 East Frederica in the home of John Johnson, his wife Lillian and seven children.   Frank is listed as a labourer.   He did go to work at the CNR by 1923,   retiring in 1957 after 34 years of service.   At some point in the early 1920s, Lillian’s husband left the family and settled in Winnipeg.   Frank and Lillian ( born Elizabeth Ellen Evans) raised the seven children and they lived the rest of their lives in Thunder Bay.   The oldest child, Gordon Leslie Johnson also eventually moved to Winnipeg. Edna Iris (nicknamed ‘Ted’) Johnson married George Schelling. Victor Earle Johnson married Velva Doris Stubbins.   Stanley Cecil Johnson married Catherine Sutherland.   Margaret Johnson married Frank Sherriff.   The youngest two children, Dorothy ‘Dot’ Marie (married Arthur Scott) and Leonard Franklin ‘Mickey’   (married Anistasia Pearl ‘Nellie’ Magalas) used the surname Kinney. When Frank and Lillian passed away, both obituaries mentioned six surviving children as Edna had passed away in 1957.

Frank passed away in Deer Lodge Hospital in Winnipeg on November 23, 1960 after a long illness.   He is buried in the Military Plot at Mountain View Cemetery in Thunder Bay Ontario.   His long time partner Lillian Kinney passed away May 2, 1970 and is also buried in Mountain View Cemetery.

By Rhonda Glofcheski

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