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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Clark, William Hamilton Hutchins

Lieutenant William Hamilton Hutchins Clark signed up with the 44th Battalion in February 1915 and served for overseas for almost four years. He returned to Canada in July 1919 with a war bride. William was the son of Phineas Hutchins Clark and Triphena Mary Harper of Winnipeg, Manitoba. Phineas and Mary were married in 1868… Read More »

Rushton, Ernest

Ernest Rushton was born on 26 February 1895 in Worcester, Worcestershire, England. His father Walter and mother Letitia (née Booth) Rushton had married in Worcester in 1894. While in England Walter’s occupation on the censuses was given as ‘China Printer Earth’. There were four children in the Rushton family, Ernest (b 1895), Percy Frank  (b… Read More »

Lowes, Roderick Percival

Although he gave his birth year as 1894 on his attestation papers, Roderick Percival (Percy) Lowes was born on 18 March 1898 in Chapleau, Ontario. His parents were William and Annie (née Stewart) Lowes. William worked for the Canadian National Railway, first as a brakeman, and  then for many years  as a conductor. The young… Read More »

Dahm, Aloysius Bonaventure

Aloysius (Allie) Bonaventure Dahm was born on 14 July 1893 in Rat Portage (later renamed Kenora), Ontario. His father Christian Dahm was from Rockville while his mother Elizabeth Brunenkamp was from Buffalo City, both in Wisconsin, USA. The young couple first lived in Saskatchewan (called the Northwest Territories at the time) where they gave birth… Read More »

Donkin, Rupert Edgar

Rupert Edgar Donkin was born on 3 May 1872 in River Philip, Cumberland, Nova Scotia. As the name would suggest the community was located in a valley along the River Philip in northwestern Nova Scotia. Around 1774 several families from Yorkshire in England were  enticed by the Lieutenant-Governor of Nova Scotia to immigrate to the… Read More »

Lovatt, Harold Griersley

Harold Griersley Lovatt was born on 25 July 1896 in Collingwood, Ontario. His father Frederick Charles Lovatt, a carpenter, was from England and had immigrated to Canada with his family as a young child, settling in the Meaford, Ontario area. His mother Mary Elizabeth Bingham grew up in the Whitchurch, York, Ontario area. The couple… Read More »

Ross, John Alexander

John Alexander Ross, known as Jack to many and as Oley to his closest friends, was born in what was then Rat Portage (later renamed Kenora) in October 1893 to Walter and Grace Ross. His parents had married in 1888 in Windsor, Ontario and moved to Rat Portage a short time later. Their first child,… Read More »

Brodie, Benjamin John

Born in  the city of London, England in the parish of St. Botolph, on  August 15, 1877, Benjamin John Brodie  was the son of  James and Elizabeth A. Brodie.    He had an older sister, Elizabeth J. Brodie and a younger sister, Lydia Barbara Brodie.   By 1891 mother Elizabeth had remarried to William Collins and… Read More »

Green, Gustave

Gustave/Gustaf Green was from  Ostersund, Pellatt Township, near Kenora, Ontario. He was born August 19, 1894 in Tännäs, Sweden to John Green and Gertrude (Olson) Green.  His older brothers were Olaf and Axel. After Gustave brothers Oscar, Magnus and Edward and a sister Mary were born. Gertrude also had a daughter, Kristina Ronsberg, from a… Read More »

Gibson, James

James Gibson III was born on 2 March 1896 in Rat Portage (later renamed Kenora), Ontario. His father James Gibson II was born in Bruce Mines, Ontario, the son of Irish immigrants James Gibson I (ore dresser) and Jane Cox. James I’s family later moved to Barrie and then on to Innisfil in southern Ontario… Read More »