Kenora Great War Project

 

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The People

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These are the stories of Kenora participants in the First World War.

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Arbuthnot, Robert James

Private Robert James Arbuthnot joined the 67th (Western Scots) Battalion in September 1915 and went overseas the following spring. He served in France and Belgium for three years and returned to Canada in June 1919. Robert was the oldest son of Robert James Arbuthnot Sr. and Florence Teresa Henesy. Robert Sr. was born in St…. Read More »

Breeze, Jack

Sapper Jack Breeze enlisted in Winnipeg in February 1916 and served overseas with the Canadian Engineers. He was wounded at the Vimy Front in the spring of 1917 and invalided to Canada later the same year. Jack was the oldest son of John Breeze and Mary Ann Edwards of Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England. John and Mary… Read More »

McKinnon, Donald Angus

Donald Angus Valentine McKinnon was born on 14 February 1895 in Rat Portage (later renamed Kenora) in northwestern Ontario. His father Angus Hugh McKinnon was from the Lochiel area of Glengarry in Ontario while his mother Catherine Jane McRae was from Roxborough, Ontario. Although he had been living in Rat Portage and working as a… Read More »

Valentine, William

According to his attestation papers, William Valentine was born on 2 September 1893 although later census documents give his birth as in August of 1894. With his birth surname of Laurenson, his mother was Catherine Laurenson, daughter of Robert and Eliza  (née Perrault) Laurenson. William and his two younger siblings, Barbara born on 10 August… Read More »

Gordon, David Gibson

David (Pax) Gibson Gordon was born to James William Gordon and Helen Douglas Gibson Gordon in Maybole, Ayrshire, Scotland on January 30, 1899. The family immigrated to Canada on the SS Corinthian, arriving in Montreal, Quebec on September 6, 1906.   From there, they made their way directly to Keewatin, Ontario   where many of… Read More »

Tatham, Albert William

Albert William Tatham was born on 16 December 1886 in Listowel, Ontario. His father William George Tatham, a hardware merchant, was from Guelph, Ontario while his mother Jane Flaherty was from Maryborough, Ontario. The couple married on 12 October 1876 in Listowel. Children born to the couple were Charles Carlyle (1877), George Sidford (1979-1881), Arthur… Read More »

Chaloner, Charles DuBerger

Charles DuBerger Chaloner was born in Norman, Ontario on November 17, 1887, the fifth child of John Henry Chaloner and Polly (Mary Gertrude Heatley). His siblings were Mary Constance Loretta, Clara  Louise  Kate, Adelaide  Heatley, Florence  Isobel, Henry St. John, Marguerite Josephine, Arthur Reginald, Robert Edward and Celina Frances Dorothy. Charles’ elder sisters were born in Quebec City… Read More »

Emerson, George Gordon

George Gordon Emerson was born on 29 November 1888 in Rat Portage (later renamed Kenora), Ontario. His parents Robert Wellington Emerson and Catherine (Kate) Wilson Martin married on 3 March 1882 in the RM of St Andrews, Manitoba. Kate’s family had been farming just outside of Rat Portage and the newlyweds were to make Rat… Read More »

Burgess, William Cowie

William Cowie Burgess was born on 11 January 1886 in Buckie, Banffshire, Scotland. His father George Burgess was from Rathven, and his mother Jane Ingram was from Fordyce, both in Banffshire. The couple married in 1871 in Fordyce. The 1881 Scotland census found George working as a van driver and at the time of William’s… Read More »

Colquhoun, Victor Alexander

Victor Alexander Colquhoun was born on 12 April 1887 in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He was the son of Andrew Colquhoun and his second wife Gertrude Elizabeth Wheeler. Andrew, born in Quebec, was a wholesale liquor merchant who had married Isabella Orr in 1870 in Montreal. Sometime after giving birth to daughter Clara Gertrude in 1872, the… Read More »