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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Wynne, Harold Everett

Lance Corporal Harold Everett Wynne enlisted in Winnipeg in March 1916, at age 18. He suffered a bayonet wound in September 1917 while training in France and he was invalided back to Canada about four months later. Harold was the only son of John Everett Wynne and Eliza Fowler. John and his wife were both… Read More »

Atcheson, Charles Reynolds

Private Charles Reynolds Atcheson enlisted in June 1915 and served in France and Belgium with the 52nd (New Ontario) Battalion. He returned to Canada in March 1919. Charles was born on 1 November 1894 in Londonderry, County Derry, Ireland. His parents were George William Atcheson and Letitia Ellis Blair. Letitia was George’s first wife and… Read More »

McClellan, Thomas

Sergeant Thomas McClellan joined the Canadian Army Service Corps in February 1917 and served in France for more than two years, most of that time with a Mechanical Transport Company. He returned to Canada in October 1919. Thomas was the oldest child and only son of James McClellan and Isabella Shippen of Whitehaven, Cumberland, England…. Read More »

Adams, Harold Craig

Harold Craig Adams was born on 7 September 1892 in Norman, Ontario, a community now amalgamated with Kenora in northwestern Ontario. His parents Alexander John Adams and Harriet Christie Farrell were both from Canada but likely married in 1883 in Minnesota, United States. Their first child, daughter Edith Electra was born in 1884 in Minnesota… Read More »

Desrosiers, Louis

Private Louis Desrosiers was the son of Joseph and Hermeline Desrosiers of Whitefish Bay on Lake of the Woods in northwestern Ontario. Joseph, a fur trader, merchant and trapper, was from Sainte-Flavie in Quebec. Hermeline/Emeline was First Nations and born in what is now northwestern Ontario. They were married on 31 January 1892, possibly in… Read More »

Hay, Gordon Climie

Captain Gordon Climie Hay enlisted in 1915 and served in France and Belgium for more than two years. He was wounded in September 1916 during the Somme Offensive and returned to Canada in August 1919. Gordon was the son of John Climie Hay and Araminta (Minnie) Adelaide Copeland of Listowel, Perth County, Ontario. John was… Read More »

Aube, Hermidas

Hermidas Aube was born on 12 May 1866 in St. Jerome, Quebec to Vincent and Margaret Aube.  He came west as a young man and worked as a labourer and a miner. By 1901 he was living in Rat Portage (Kenora) Ontario with a wife and children.  He worked at the Sultana Mine and also… Read More »

Raine, Richard Oats

Richard Oats Raine was born on 23 December 1900 in South Shields, Northumberland, England. His father, Joseph Garrett Raine, was born in County Durham and his mother, Mary Ann Oats, in Northumberland. Joseph was a butcher by trade. He and Mary Ann were married in 1896 and they had at least seven children: Margaret Mary,… Read More »

Chambers, William John

Dr. William John Chambers enlisted in the Canadian Army Medical Corps in September 1915 and served in Canada for almost four years. He was discharged in June 1919 and died in a tragic train accident seven months later. William was born in Lucknow, Ashfield Township, Huron County, Ontario on 5 January 1874. His parents were… 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 »