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These are the stories of Kenora participants in the First World War.
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William John Lang was born 27 October 1881 in Hamilton, Ontario. His parents were Thomas Henry Lang (a brakeman on the railroad) and Louisa Lewis. Siblings included Charles (b. 1883) and Maggie (b. 1888). The family was living in St. Thomas Ontario in 1891 and 1901. William’s mother, Louisa, died in 1897 when he was… Read More »
Driver Esfeld Wolfe enlisted at age 17 and served with the Canadian Field Artillery for almost two years. He enlisted again in the Second World War and served for three years before becoming ill. He passed away in November 1943. Esfeld was born on 12 October 1899 in Iceland, the youngest son of Ulfar Gunnlaugsson… Read More »
William McLay Dempster was one of two sons of William and Margaret Dempster of Stirling, Scotland to enlist from Keewatin during the war. William and his brother Robert had come to Canada in 1912, settling Keewatin where their uncle James and his wife Ann lived. All the men worked for the Lake of the Woods… Read More »
The son of George Lindsay and Caroline Johnson, Ernest Lindsay was born on 17 May 1893 in Napanee, Ontario. His father George was a fisherman in the Belleville/Napanee area although they may also have had a small farm. Ernest had four older siblings, George, Lilly, Grace, and Herbert. Sadly, it appears that Lilly, struck by… Read More »
Sapper Brook Noble enlisted in February 1916 at age 41 and served for three years in Canada, England and France. Brook was the son of George and Harriett Noble of Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, England. He was born in Lindley, Huddersfield on 21 August 1874 and he had at least two sisters and four brothers: John,… Read More »
Private John James Pearce enlisted in December 1914 and served overseas for four years, most of that time with the 1st Canadian Mounted Rifles and the Royal Canadian Dragoons. His wife and children moved to England while he was serving and they returned to Canada with him in May 1919. John was born on 15… Read More »
Ivan Birbeck was born on 26 April 1899 in Rat Portage (later renamed Kenora) in northwestern Ontario. According to William Shurtleff’s Shurtleff and Lawton Families: Genealogy and History and other sources, Ivan’s father Thomas Edson Birbeck was born in 1865 in Leeds, Yorkshire in England. At a young age he ran away from home and… Read More »
Born on 27 June 1880 in Round Hill, Annapolis, Nova Scotia, Ernest Edward Wagstaff was the eldest child of William and Mary (née Yewdale) Wagstaff who had married 26 August 1979 in Annapolis. His father, born in Nova Scotia, was a carpenter by trade while his mother was from England. When the couple first married… Read More »
