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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Grendys, Walter

Sergeant Walter Grendys was born in Poland on 31 December 1896. According to his Canadian Legion membership application he enlisted in the cavalry in Rzeszow in 1914 and served with them until 1921. When the First World War started Poland was not an independent state but was partitioned between three empires. Thousands of Polish men… Read More »

Humphrey, John Edgar Alexander

Private John Edgar Alexander Humphrey was born on 29 November 1894 in Dixville, Barnston Township, Quebec. His father Samuel Edgar Humphrey, a farmer, was from the U.S. and his mother Isabelle Murray was born in Quebec to Scottish parents. Samuel and Isabelle were married in Coaticook, Barnston County in 1884 and they had at least… Read More »

Hartlen, Ernest Norman

Ernest Norman Hartlen was born on 25 January 1894 in Jeddore Oyster Ponds, Halifax County, Nova Scotia. The original spelling of the surname was Hartling, shortened to Hartlin, and modified by some family members to Hartlen. Within Jeddore Oyster Ponds is an area known as the Hartlin Settlement. Both of Ernest’s parents, fisherman George Hartlin… Read More »

Margach, William

Private William Margach enlisted with a field ambulance unit in January 1917 in Edmonton, Alberta. He served overseas for two years and returned to Canada in March 1919. William was the son of William Innes Margach and Margaret Dunbar Hay of Edmonton, Alberta. His parents were both born in southern Ontario and they were married… Read More »

Hudec, Andrew

The son of Miclas and Julia (née Durta) Hudec, Andrew Hudec was born on 9 June 1900 in Hornykamenec, Nitoa in Czechoslovakia and served during WW1, details unknown. He immigrated to Canada in 1927, settling in Kenora, Ontario where he found work with the Ontario Minnesota Pulp and Paper Company. On 2 September 1933, in… Read More »

Morrison, Byron

Private Byron Morrison enlisted in July 1916 and served in France and Belgium with the 49th Battalion. He was seriously wounded in October 1917 at the Battle of Passchendaele and invalided back to Canada a year later. Byron was the youngest son of William John Robert Morrison and Sarah Stinson of Edmonton, Alberta. Byron’s father,… Read More »

Stewart, Peter

Peter Stewart was born on 17 October 1889 in March Cottage in Forse, Latheron, Caithness, Scotland. He was the eldest child of farmer Donald Stewart and Dorothy Mackay who had married on 18 January 1889 in Inverness. His younger siblings included Mary (1891), Isabella Marjorie (Ida) (1893), William (1896) and Dorothy Evelyn (Dora) (1898). At… Read More »

Brown, David

Acting Lance Corporal David Brown enlisted in Cupar, County of Fife, Scotland on 8 February 1915, signing up as a Driver with the Royal Engineers. He was 19 years old at the time and working as a groom at a stables in Cupar. Next of kin was his father James Brown, who lived in Dundee…. Read More »

Adams, Arthur Charles Lewer

Second Lieutenant Arthur Charles Lewer Adams was a law student when he enlisted in Edmonton in February 1916. He served in France with the 46th Battalion then received a commission in the Indian Army. He was sent to India and Afghanistan and returned to Canada in December 1919. Charles was the only son of Reverend… Read More »

Campbell, Randolph Arthur

Randolph Arthur Campbell was a watchmaker by trade when he joined the Canadian Expeditionary Force on January 1, 1915. The Campbell family – Frederick Sr., his wife Janet and children Thomas, Mary, Lillian, Duncan, Randolph, Katherine and Frederick Kenneth – had come to what was then Rat Portage in 1893 from Shelborne, Ontario. Frederick, born… Read More »