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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Deschambeau, George

According to his attestation paper, George Edouard Deschambeau was born on 24 May 1886 in Kenora, Ontario (Rat Portage at the time). His father George Deschambeault, born at Fort Cumberland, Northwest Territories, was employed by the Hudson’s Bay Company as was his grandfather, also George Deschambeault. His mother Virginie Genthon was born in Manitoba and… Read More »

Lalonde, Frank

Private Frank Lalonde was a widower with four young children when he enlisted in December 1915 at age 42. He served for three years in Canada, the UK and France. Frank was born on 24 January 1873 on Allumette Island in Pontiac County, Quebec. He was baptized two months later in the mission church at… Read More »

Fomin, John

Private John Fomin enlisted in May 1916 and served for three years in Canada, England and France. He was wounded in March 1917 and invalided to Canada in December 1918 due to illness. According to his attestation John was born on 26 September 1878 in Odessa, a large city on the northern tip of the… Read More »

McDonald, John Dougal

John Dougal McDonald was born on 19 August 1890 near Dunvegan in the township of Kenyon in north Glengarry County where the family farmed. His parents were Dougal McDonald and Joanna Buchanan who had married in 1885 in Kenyon. John had two older sisters, Annie Mary (1886-1967) and Catherine Isabel (1888-1919). Sadly Joanna died ten… Read More »

Bolton, Stanley Earl

Stanley Earl Bolton was born on 24 March 1895 in Rat Portage (later renamed Kenora) in northwestern Ontario. His father Philip Henry Bolton was from the township of Bastard in Leeds County, Ontario while his mother Rosie McQuade was from Ballymena, County Antrim, Ireland. A few weeks after her arrival in Winnipeg in 1888 the… Read More »

Steers, Edwin Albert

Warrant Officer Edwin Albert Steers enlisted in the Royal Air Force in October 1917, at age 16, and went on to have a thirty year career in the military. After his service ended in 1947 he immigrated to Canada. Edwin was born in 1901 in Sittingbourne, Kent, England. His parents, Alfred Steers and Elizabeth Nix,… Read More »

Figsby, William Henry

William Henry Figsby was one of the men to answer the first call for volunteers when the Great War began in August 1914. Along with 43 other Kenora and Keewatin men, Figsby stepped forward when the local militia unit, the 98th Regiment, was given a directive to raise a local group of men for the… Read More »

Mathews, Seymour James

Seymour James Mathews was born on 18 September 1882 in Cirencester, Gloucester, England. His father Francis William (Frank) Mathews, a bootmaker, was from Cirencester while his mother Mary Jane Holland was from nearby Duntisbourne Abbots. The couple married during the second quarter of 1874 in the registration district of Cirencester. Children born to the family… Read More »

Field, Ralph Archibald

Ralph Archibald Field was born on 2 June 1898 in the Vauxhall area of London, England. His father Joseph William Henry Field was from St Helena Island while his mother Emily Edith Pierce was from Islington, London. Joseph was a French polisher, a labour intensive trade that involved applying many thin coats of shellac dissolved… Read More »