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These are the stories of Kenora participants in the First World War.
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Bjornstjerne Benson (alias Johnson) was born in Langruth, Manitoba. He had five brothers: Ben, Chris, Karl, Bladur and Carl, and two sisters, Gudny and Margaret. His parents were Bjorn Benedictson and Sigridur Jonsdottir. He was born 01 March, 1900, and his father was a farmer. Just after his 18th birthday, Bjorn attested with the Fort… Read More »
Britain’s Mesopotamia Expeditionary Force faced harsh conditions very different from those on the Western Front: a desert climate, extreme heat, spring flooding and hordes of flies and insects. During the war they suffered almost 100,000 casualties of which 11,000 were men killed and over 12,000 were deaths from illness and disease. Driver Richard Josiah Gay… Read More »
John “Jack” Richardson Millings was born on 27 October 1902 in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. His name was registered as Jack Richardson and he was born in the Horton Union Workhouse. His mother, Lily Richardson, was single and her usual residence was 99 Clayton Street in Bradford. She worked as a worsted spinner. At some… Read More »
Private Wilfred Lavoie joined the 52nd Battalion in 1915 and served overseas for four years. He returned to Canada in September 1919 with a war bride. Wilfred was the son of Wilfred Lavoie Sr. and Mary Ann McKeon of Kenora, Ontario. Mary Ann’s family emigrated from Scotland when she was a child and by 1881… Read More »
Harold Craig Adams was born on 7 September 1892 in Norman, Ontario, a community now amalgamated with Kenora in northwestern Ontario. His parents Alexander John Adams and Harriet Christie Farrell were both from Canada but likely married in 1883 in Minnesota, United States. Their first child, daughter Edith Electra was born in 1884 in Minnesota… Read More »
John Fulton Forsyth was born on 1 October 1896 in Maybole, Ayrshire, Scotland. His parents Edward Forsyth and Elizabeth Robb were both from Maybole, marrying on 27 December 1895 in the Commercial Hotel in Maybole. At the time Edward’s occupation was given as shoemaker (journeyman) while Elizabeth was working as a shoe fitter. John was… Read More »
Paul Kofalick was working as a labourer in Doaktown, New Brunswick when he signed his attestation papers in Chatham on 13 January 1916. Located in central New Brunswick, at the time Doaktown, as it is today, was a centre for the lumbering industry. A Russian immigrant, Paul gave his date and place of birth as… Read More »
Honourary Captain William Tindal Lorymer was the Baptist minister in Kenora, Ontario when he enlisted in July 1916. He served overseas with the Canadian Chaplain Service for three years, returning to Canada in September 1919. William was born in London, England to John Charles Lorymer and Emma Phoebe Feast. John and Emma were married in… Read More »
According to his attestation papers that he signed on 22 February 1916 in Kenora, Ontario, Daniel Logan was born on 23 August 1874 in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England. A birth registration was not found nor was an age appropriate immigration/passenger list record of his coming to Canada. He gave his son Edward with the 10th… Read More »
Walter Gowsell was born in southern Ontario in a farming area just north of Belleville. Although he gave his date of birth as 23 July 1882 in Foxboro on his attestation papers, his Ontario birth registration gives the date as 20 May 1882 in the nearby community of Thurlow, likely written as the township instead… Read More »
