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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Powell, Wilfrid Bayley

Wilfrid Bayley Powell was born 30 July 1891 in London, England. His parents were Louis Herbert Powell and Ada Jane Dunster Bayley. His siblings included: Martin (1893 – 1963), Ruth (1895 – 1941) and Edna (1898 – 1999). Louis worked as a clerk to a printers broker and a printers traveller. Wilfrid immigrated to Canada… Read More »

Olafson, Johannes Erlindson

Johannes (John) Erlindson Olafson was born on 2 August 1887 in Pembina, North Dakota.   His parents were Icelandic immigrants,   Erlendur Olafson and Iwa Magnusson.   Younger siblings included: Ingiborg (born 1889), Sigrun (born 1890), Olie Valdemar (born 1892) and Dora Margaret (born 1898). At some point, Johannes moved north and found work on… Read More »

Hinds, Frederick Ellsworth

Private Frederick Ellsworth Hinds signed up with the Canadian Army Medical Corps in December 1915, at age 21, and served overseas for more than three years. Ellsworth was the son of Frederick Hinds and Isabel Mathieson of Winnipeg, Manitoba. Frederick was born in Brussels, Ontario and Isabel in Toronto. They were married in 1891 in… Read More »

Rowbottom, Charles Frederick

Private Charles ‘Ted’ Rowbottom was living in Kenora, Ontario with his wife and two young children when the war started. He enlisted four months later and served overseas until July 1916, when he was wounded for the second time. His health deteriorated over the next few years and he died in England in July 1919…. Read More »

Cooke, Henry Porter

Henry Porter Cooke was born on 5 January 1884 in Uxbridge, Ontario West. His father Henry Hamilton Cooke of Belfast, Ireland had immigrated to Canada and settled in the Uxbridge area while his mother Elizabeth Bolster was born in Uxbridge, the daughter of Irish immigrants. Henry’s parents had married on 23 October 1872 in Uxbridge… Read More »

Hilliard, Charles Edwin

According to his attestation papers, Charles Edwin Louis Hilliard was born on 23 August 1884 in Whitemouth, Manitoba. His father was Louis Hilliard, a Norwegian that had immigrated to Canada in 1870 (date found in 1901 Canada census), and his mother was Ann McGinnis, origins given as Irish. The couple was found in the 1881… Read More »

Barley, Bertie Tomlinson

Although he gave his place of birth as Worcester on his attestation papers, Bertie Tomlinson Barley was born on 27 January 1882 in Claines, Worcestershire in England, a small community outside of the city. His father John Barley was from New Brighton, Cheshire while his mother Eleanor (Ellen) Pardoe was from Claines. The couple married… Read More »

Parmeter, Frank Richard

Frank Richard (Dick) Parmeter was born on 18 May 1891 in Kington, Herefordshire, England. His father Frank William Parmeter was from Bletchy in the district of Newport Pagnell in Buckinghamshire where his parents, classified as hotel keepers on census documents, operated the Station Hotel and Refreshment Room. His mother Juliet Emma Chapman was from Uppingham,… Read More »

Pearson, Samuel

Samuel Pearson’s name appeared in the 24 June 1916 edition of the Kenora Miner and News for enlisting with the 221st Battalion. His identity and service could not be confirmed.  

McCutchan, Donald

Donald Robert McCutchan was born in Ireland, on Jan. 14, 1885, the youngest son and fourth of five children of Susan Harriet Head and British Army surgeon Lt. Col. James Shaw McCutchan. In 1900 Susan, who was separated from her husband, emigrated  to Canada to join her second husband The Hon. JEP Vereker who’d established… Read More »