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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Bunting, Robert Edmund

Private Robert Edmund Bunting was the youngest son of Robert James Bunting and Alice Agar Fitzgerald. James was born in New Brunswick and Alice in Ontario. They both moved to northwestern Ontario with their families around 1880. They were married in Rat Portage (later renamed Kenora) in 1882 and they had a daughter Violetta in… Read More »

Keep, Walter

Walter Keep was born on 19 April 1888 in Wokingham, Berkshire, England. His father Edward Keep was from Streatham, Surrey while his mother Maria Bristow was from Waltham St Lawrence in Berkshire. The couple married on 9 January 1871 in Warlingham, Surrey. Over the years Edward’s occupation was listed as groom or coachman. In the… Read More »

Simister, Richard

Birth date and location: According to Richard’s Attestation Paper, he was born December 31, 1972 in Liverpool, England. His actual birth date, however, was December 31, 1865. His parents were John Simister and Sarah Edge. Richard was baptized at St. Peter’s Church, Liverpool on February 11, 1866. His father, John, was a Rope Maker and… Read More »

Ruggles, Timothy Dwight

Timothy Dwight Ruggles was born on 11 February 1886 in Paradise, Annapolis, Nova Scotia. He was the second  child  of Charles Frederick and Emily Cecelia (née Gibson) Ruggles who had married in Bridgetown in 1883. Timothy had an older sister Annie Lillian and three younger siblings Frances Elizabeth, Stephen Sneden, and Charles Frederick. Timothy signed… Read More »

McLeod, John Murdo

John Murdo McLeod was the son of Duncan McLeod and Mary (Maisy) Munro, both born in Scotland. They immigrated in the 1880s and settled in Keewatin. Duncan’s employment was as a labourer, lumberman and carpenter. They had seven children: John (1888), Maggie Christa (1890), Alexander Stewart (1892), Annie Munro/Eunice (1893), William (1895), Duncan (1897), and… Read More »

Paulsen, Hans

Private Hans Paulsen was born in Oslo (Christiania), Norway and immigrated to Canada with his wife Mathilda around 1904. Mathilda had a son, Karl Johan (Carl John), who was born in Norway in 1891 or 1892. With Hans she had another son, Hans William, who was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba in Ocober 1904. Hans and… Read More »

James, Arthur Frederick

Arthur Frederick James was born on 06 October 1889 in Christchurch, Hampshire, England.  He was the second son of blacksmith, Noah James and Augusta ELLEN Elliott.  His siblings included Nellie ‘Ellen’ (b. 1887), Henry Edward (b. 1888), Ernest Walter (b. 1891), Reginald Wilfred (b. 1896), Margaret May (b. 1897) and Winifred Maud (b. 1903). Arthur… Read More »

DeGagne, Arthur Joseph

Although a birth record was not found, it appears that Arthur Joseph DeGagne was born on 6 October 1893 in Rat Portage (later renamed Kenora), Ontario. His parents Pierre Paul (Peter) DesGagnes and Eva Coté were from Quebec, marrying on 18 January 1875 in St-Jean-de-Dieu, Les Basques where Peter was working as a meunier (miller)…. Read More »

Birbeck, Francis Vivian

Francis Vivian (Frank) Birbeck was born on 24 July 1893 in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. According to William Shurtleff’s Shurtleff and Lawton Families: Genealogy and History and other sources, Frank’s father Thomas Edson Birbeck was born in 1865 in Leeds, Yorkshire in England. At a young age he ran away from home and went to sea,… Read More »

McPherson, James Leonard

Gunner James Leonard McPherson was called up in March 1918 and served with the Canadian Field Artillery for nine months in Canada. James was the son of John McPherson and Margaret Carnegie of Keewatin, Ontario. John, a carpenter and millwright, was from London, England. He had at least four children with his first wife, Margaret… Read More »