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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Blackburn, Arthur Stanley

Private Arthur Stanley Blackburn was called up for service in January 1918 and he arrived in France seven months later. He served with the 27th (City of Winnipeg) Battalion in the last months of the war and returned to Canada in March 1919. Arthur Stanley (sometimes spelled Standley) was most likely born in Vincennes Township,… Read More »

Chinn, Edward John

Edward John Chinn was born on 21 March 1886 in Cheddar, Somerset in England, birth registered during the second quarter of 1886 in the District of Axbridge. Other sources such as censuses, his obituary, and his service record give varying years of birth, from 1883 to 1888. His father John Chinn, a butcher, was from… Read More »

McManaman, James

James McManaman was born on 28 September 1884 in the township of Melancthon, Ontario. His parents Thomas McManaman and Julia Connors were both born in Ireland, immigrating to Canada with their parents to settle with a number of Irish families in the Melancthon area to farm. Thomas and Julia married on 30 January 1872 in… Read More »

Dalmer, Herbert Alexander

Herbert Alexander Dalmer was born on 16 January 1899 in the West Derby area of Liverpool, Lancashire, England. His parents Ernest Alexander Dalmer, a gas fitter, and Emma Hester Shaw were both from Liverpool, marrying on 4 September 1892 in Toxeth, Liverpool. Children born to the couple in West Derby were Gladys Eugene (1894), Florence… Read More »

Sewell, Horace

Horace (Bud) Sewell was born on 2 September 1894 in Rat Portage (later renamed Kenora), Ontario. Both of his parents John Sewell and Louisa Sarah Parr were from England, immigrating to Canada around 1891 according to later census records. Their first child, daughter Gladys, was born in 1893 in Rat Portage where John was working… Read More »

Montgomery, Oswald Francis

With a family of eight children, five of the Montgomery sons were to enlist during the war. The Montgomery family had its roots in Lanark County in Ontario. Oswald Montgomery Sr, the son of a farmer and local justice of the peace, was born in 1857 in the township of Drummond. On 11 June 1884,… Read More »

Meikle, Ivie

Ivie Meikle was born on 31 October 1885 in Catrine, Ayrshire, Scotland. A village on the River Ayr, Catrine was constructed around one of the first cotton mills (1787)  in Scotland that was enlarged in 1823 by adding a bleaching works. Ivie was the son of Thomas Meikle and Elizabeth Garvan who had married on… Read More »

Birbeck, Ivan

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 »

Brynelson, Oscar

Sapper Oscar Brynelson enlisted in February 1916 and served for three years in Canada, Great Britain, France, Belgium and Germany. He enlisted again in the Second World War. Oscar was the son of Nels and Augusta Brynelson of Starbuck, Manitoba. Nels and his wife were both born in Norway and immigrated to Canada in the… Read More »

Murgatroyd, Bertram

Bertram Murgatroyd was born on 22 December 1896 in Rat Portage (Kenora), Ontario. His parents were Benjamin John Murgatroyd and Harriet Ann Taylor. Siblings included Jessie May (b. 1894), Sydney (1898-1960), Harriet Edith (1904-1982) and Benjamin Edwin James (1908-1967). Bertram’s father, Benjamin Sr., worked for the railroad. When he married in 1894 he was a… Read More »