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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Nicholson, Raymond Robert Nairn

Raymond Robert Nairn Nicholson, known as Robin, was one of four children  of Murdoch and Catherine (Kitty) Nicholson. The Nicholsons had come to Rat Portage in the 1880s from P.E.I. In Rat Portage Murdoch opened a shop as a merchant tailor. Their first son, Alfred Samuel, born in 1887, died of pneumonia in 1902. Daughter… Read More »

Moore, Stewart William

With brown hair, gray eyes, and only 1/2 inch difference in height, the Moore twins were born on the same day, had their medical examinations on the same day, both were working as trainmen for the Canadian Pacific Railway at the time of the war, and both were called up for service on the same… Read More »

Parsons, Henry Edmund

Henry Edmund Parsons was born 2 January 1887 in Rat Portage, Ontario. His parents were Alfred Joseph Parsons and Florence Nightingale Johnstone. Alfred and Florence were both born in Quebec, Alfred in Huntingdon and his wife in Sorel. They were married in Montreal in October 1883 and their first child, Beatrice, was born the following… Read More »

Drew, John

The son of John and Elizabeth (née Page) Drew, John Drew was born on 29 December 1892 in Hathersage, Derbyshire, England. For the 1901 England census the family was living in Gorleston, Norfolk, England, father’s occupation given as engine driver. The children listed with the parents in the census were Elizabeth, Sarah, Ellen, George, and… Read More »

Alcock, Charles

Charles Alcock was born on March 26, 1869, in Belleville, Hastings County, Ontario. He was one of at least 14 children of Joseph Samuel Alcock and  Sarah Ann Belch. When the 1891 census was taken his parents were still living in the Belleville area where his father was farming. By 1901 Charles and his family… Read More »

Mahoney, James Robert

According to his attestation papers, James Robert Mahoney was born on 27 July 1887 in Melrose, New Brunswick. Originally known as Emigrant Road, in the 1820’s and 1830’s free land grants for farming were available in the area in the hope of attracting pioneer immigrants. As a result, the village of Ballynamuck, parish of Moragh… Read More »

McNicol, Robert

Robert McNicol was born on 28 May 1898 in the district of Kinning Park in Glasgow, Scotland, date confirmed by his Scotland birth registration record. His father William McNicol, a marine engineer, was from Alloa in Clackmannshire while his mother Mary McLeod Martin was from Ayr in Ayrshire. The couple married in Kinning Park on… Read More »

Kemp, Peter Gillespie Muir

Peter Gillespie Muir Kemp was born on 15 April 1898 in Ballymacarrett, Belfast in northern Ireland. His father John Kemp, a ship rivetter, was from Port Glasgow in Scotland while his mother Sarah Havelin was from Glasgow, the couple marrying on 15 June 1888 in Port Glasgow. Children born to the couple in the Port… Read More »

Sparks, Robert Henry

Private Robert Henry Sparks enlisted with the 52nd Battalion in May 1915 and served in England, France and Belgium. He was wounded in 1916 at the Battle of Mount Sorrel and spent the rest of the war in the UK and Canada. Robert was the son of Thomas George Sparks (Sparkes) and Eliza Mackler of… Read More »

Desilet, Joseph Francis

Joseph Francis Desilet was born on 25 May 1890 in Norman, Ontario, the community now amalgamated with Kenora in northwestern Ontario. His parents Joseph Desilet and Caroline Provost were both from Quebec, marrying on 21 April 1873 in St Theodore de Chestsy, Montcalm. At the time of the marriage Joseph Sr’s occupation was given as… Read More »