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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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 »

Hastings, Walter Anderson

Captain Walter Anderson Hastings was the son of George Victor Hastings and Margaret Ferguson Anderson of Winnipeg, Manitoba. Margaret was born in North Dumfries Township, Waterloo County, Ontario. George was born in Quebec and he started working in the milling business at an early age. His mother was Mary Ogilvie and George was employed by… Read More »

Armour, Robert

Private Robert Armour was married and the father of two young children when he enlisted in Winnipeg in January 1916. He was wounded in the last weeks of the war but he survived and returned home in March 1919. Robert was the oldest son of Thomas and Jane Armour of Keewatin, Ontario. He was born… Read More »

McLeod, Cecil

Cecil McLeod joined the war effort as soon as he was old enough, enlisting with the 76th Canadian Field Artillery Depot Battery in Winnipeg in March 1917, just three months after turning 18. McLeod had been born in Rat Portage Dec. 8, 1898, the son of Edward Donald McLeod, a CPR engineer, and Elizabeth Eakins…. Read More »

Johnson, Albin William

Gunner Albin William Johnson enlisted in Winnipeg in April 1917, two weeks after his 18th birthday. He served overseas with the Canadian Field Artillery and returned to Canada in September 1919. Albin was the youngest son of Sven John Johnson and Josephine Carlson of Kenora, Ontario. Sven was born in Sweden and came to Canada… Read More »

Poole, John

During the First World War more than 11,000 employees of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company enlisted for service and 1,116 of them gave their lives. Sapper John Poole was working as a locomotive fireman for the CPR in Kenora, Ontario when he signed up in February 1916. He arrived in France later that year and… Read More »

McMonagle, Eugene

Private Eugene McMonagle was the son of George McMonagle and Ellen Jane McRae of Finch Township, Cornwall and Stormont County, Ontario. He was born on 17 January 1888 in Berwick, Finch Township, his birth registered as Uejane Ezekiel McMonagle. His father was a farmer at the time. Eugene’s parents were married in Avonmore, Stormont County… Read More »

Bella, Joseph Marshall

Joseph Marshall Bella was born on 4 April 1882 in Liverpool, Lancashire, England. His father Joseph Marshall Bella, a saddler by trade, was born about 1844 in Caledon, County Tyrone, Ireland. Joseph Sr had married Louise Griffiths during the 3rd quarter of 1868 in the registration district of West Derby, Lancashire and together the couple… Read More »

Staveley, George Herbert

  George Herbert Staveley was born on 29 September 1883 in Manchester, Lancashire, England. Their first born child, his parents George, an engine fitter, and Jane Ann (née Johnson) Staveley were both from Manchester. Other children born to the family were Annie Beatrice (1884) and John (1886). By the 1891 England census George Sr had… Read More »

Vereker, Jeffrey

Jeffrey Vereker was among the first group of Kenora volunteers to enlist following the declaration of war in August 1914. Born Jan. 5, 1896, Jeffrey was the son of the Hon. JEP Vereker, youngest son of the 4th Viscount of Gort. JEP (Jeffrey Edward Prendergast) Vereker had served for 20 years with the Royal Field… Read More »