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These are the stories of Kenora participants in the First World War.
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Staff Sergeant Major Alfred Henry Murphy served at the militia headquarters in Winnipeg from January 1915 to June 1918, followed by about two years with the Canadian Army Service Corps. He was demobilized in April 1919. Alfred was the son of John and Lucy Murphy of Greyabbey, County Down, Ireland. John was a shoemaker and… Read More »
Private Phillip Pelly enlisted in July 1916 and served in France and Belgium with the 52nd Battalion. He was invalided back to Canada in March 1918 due to illness. Phillip’s service file records his birth as 10 July 1898 at Grassy Narrows First Nation in northwestern Ontario. He was working in the Kenora area when… Read More »
According to his attestation papers, Peter Lapierre was born on 10 May 1884 in Montreal, Quebec. However by all accounts it is more than likely that he was Joseph Delphis Lapierre who was born on 7 August 1876 in Joliette, Quebec. His parents Benjamin Lapierre and Marguerite Marineau (Austin dit Marineau) married on 28 August… Read More »
Along with a number of other fellows, the name Ernest Sprickling appeared in the 21 October 1914 edition of the Kenora Miner and News. The article stated that the volunteers had gone to Winnipeg to enlist in the war. Ernest’s identity and service could not be confirmed.
Although he gave his birth date as 20 September 1888 on his attestation papers, Ralph Sansom (spelling later changed to Sanson) was born on 25 September 1887 in Emery, York, Ontario. Emery later became known as a neighbourhood in north Toronto. His father Alfred Sansom was from London, England while his mother Sarah Ann Sutton… Read More »
Earl Edward Webb was born on 24 December 1893 in Keewatin, Ontario, a small town a few kilometres west of Kenora in northwestern Ontario. His parents William Webb and Josephine Zapfe married on 5 November 1880 in Bayfield, Ontario. By the next year the couple was living in Guelph, Ontario, giving birth to son William… Read More »
Staff Sergeant Cyril Douglas Ackerman was born in London, England and immigrated to Canada with his family in 1907, when he was nine years old. He enlisted at the age of 19 and served with the Canadian Army Service Corps in Winnipeg and Ottawa. Cyril was the son of Ella Lilian Cahill Stuart and George… Read More »
Charles Edgar Holland was born 04 August 1900 in Rat Portage (Kenora), Ontario. His parents were Herbert Edward Holland and Ada Black Donkin. He was the oldest of five children of this couple. His siblings were Evelyn May, John Frederick, Winnifred Jean and Ada Gertrude. A year after Charles’ birth the family moved to Manitoba… Read More »
John Alexander Brough was born on 26 February 1896, birth registered in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba. His father John Allen Brough was from the Northwest Territories while his mother Harriet Sanderson was from Manitoba. The couple married on 1 February 1889 in Portage la Prairie. Alex had two older siblings, Mary Ann (b 1891) and… Read More »
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 »
