Kenora Great War Project

 

Personal Details
Date of BirthMarch 29, 1899
Place of BirthNassau, Quebec
CountryCanada
Marital StatusSingle
Next of KinJohn Lough, father, 8 Main Street North, Kenora, Ontario
Trade / CallingFarmer
ReligionPresbyterian
Service Details
Regimental Number3356134
Service Record Link to Service Record
Battalion1st Depot Battalion, Saskatchewan Regiment
ForceCanadian Expeditionary Force
BranchCanadian Infantry
Enlisted / ConscriptedConscripted
Address at Enlistment8 Main Street North, Kenora, Ontario
Date of EnlistmentAugust 23, 1918
Age at Enlistment19
Theatre of ServiceCanada
Prisoner of WarNo
Survived WarYes
Death Details
Date of DeathFebruary 19, 1957
Age at Death58
Buried AtSt Mark's Cemetery, Salt Spring Island, British Columbia

Lough, Charles Leslie

According to his attestation papers Charles Leslie  Lough was born on  29 March 1899  in Nassau, Quebec. His parents John Robert and Helen (Nellie) (née Storey) Lough, had married on 27 November 1889 in Buckingham, Quebec  although neither were of French Canadian descent. It appears that their first child, George Garfield, born in 1891, died less than two months later. Other children born to the family were Pearlena Myrtle (1892), Russell Emerson (1895), Lyla May (1896), and two infants that died within days after birth, Oswald Manley (1900), and Nellie Margaret (1906). By the 1901 Canada census the family had relocated to Rat Portage (later renamed Kenora) in northwestern Ontario. For a number of years John worked at the local mines in the area before finding employment at the Keewatin Lumber Company.

Although he gave his home address as Kenora, Charles signed his recruitment papers in Regina, Saskatchewan on 23 August 1918. His occupation was listed as farmer and his next of kin as his father John in Kenora. Blue-eyed with dark brown hair, Charles was nineteen. So close to the end of the war, Charles did not go overseas and was discharged due to demobilization on 12 March 1919.

Returning to Kenora, Charles later married Agda Desideria Spetz. Born on 13 May 1909 in Robertsfor, Vasterbotten, Sweden, Agda (Ida) was the daughter of Johan Oskar (Ronnberg) and Emma Desideria (Lingberg) Spetz. She arrived in Halifax aboard the Gripsholm in October of 1929 with her final  destination given as Kenora. Charles and Ida gave birth to three known children, Ellen Myrtle, May Lorraine, and Joyce. By the mid to late 1930’s the family had moved to British Columbia and were found on the 1940 Voter’s List for Nanaimo where Charles was listed as a mill worker. By the late 1940’s Charles was working as a logger in the logging industry on Vancouver Island.

Predeceased by his father John in 1922 and his sister Lyla Bennett in 1934, both in Kenora, Charles died suddenly on 19 February 1957 in Ganges, Salt Spring Island where the family was living and Charles had been working as a logger. At the time of his death he was survived by his wife Ida, daughters Ellen Byron of Salt Springs, May of the Royal Canadian Air Force, and Joyce, at home, five grandchildren as well as his mother Nellie,  his brother Russell, and sister Myrtle Patterson, all in Ontario. Charles is interred in St Mark’s Cemetery on Salt Springs Island. His Veteran Death Card listed his wife Ida Lough of Victoria, British Columbia as his next of kin.  With a home address  in Richmond, British Columbia, Ida died in the Riverview Hospital in Essondale (Coquitlam) in 1968. She is interred with Charles in St Marks Cemetery.

by Judy Stockham

Obituary provided by Mike Melen

Lough-Charles-Leslie-2


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