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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Quinton, Charles Henry

Charles Henry Quinton was born November  9, 1897 in Glasgow, Scotland.  His parents were Robert Quinton and Ellen Ada  Theedam who married in Stepney St. Thomas, an Anglican Parish in London, England. This parish was bombed in the 2nd World War, 1940, and later demolished.  Their  children, listed in order of birth,  were Ellen E.,… Read More »

Smith, George

George Smith was born on 9 June 1881 in Haddenham, Buckinghamshire, England. His parents were Alfred, born in Haddenham, and Annie, born in Woodstock, Oxfordshire. Found in the 1881 England census for Haddenham, Alfred was listed as an agricultural labourer. George had an older sister Florrie who was born in 1879 in Haddenham. During the… Read More »

McLeod, Duncan (1865-1925)

Private Duncan McLeod (Sr.) enlisted in January 1916, at age 50, and served in France with the 16th Battalion. He was wounded at the Vimy front in February and April 1917 and invalided back to Canada the following year. All four of his sons also served in the war and two of them died. Duncan… Read More »

Benson, Robert John

Robert John (Bobby) Benson was born on 18 May 1894 in Davidson, Saskatchewan. His parents Hans Benedikt Johannesson and Rosa Gudmundsdottir were from Iceland, marrying on 22 July 1876 in Grenadarstadur, Sudur-Thingeyjarsysea. The couple gave birth to two children in Iceland, Egill (George) in 1875 and Vestium (Weston) in 1879. At some point after Weston’s… Read More »

Paterson, Norman William

Along with his twin sister Euphemia, Norman William Paterson was born on 11 October 1891 in the village of Norman, later absorbed by Kenora, in northwestern Ontario. His parents John Alexander Paterson and Helen (Nellie) Clark were both from Dundee, Scotland where the couple had married in 1881. After the birth of their first two… Read More »

Loyst, John Wesley

Corporal John Wesley Loyst enlisted in March 1916 and served overseas for two and a half years. He was wounded at the Battle of Vimy Ridge but he survived the war and returned home in June 1919. John was the oldest son of John Wesley Loyst Sr. and Mary Sinclair of Chase, British Columbia. John… Read More »

Tweedie, Louis Herwald

Private Louis Herwald Tweedie was born in either Rat Portage or Norman, Ontario on 8 February 1893. He had an older brother Roswell Dawson and two younger sisters, Hazel and Olive, all born in Norman or Rat Portage (now called Kenora). His father, Eusebius Dawson Tweedie, was from Carlton Place, Ontario and his mother, Christina… Read More »

Portier, Victor

Victor Portier was born on 16 August 1897 in Lagorce, Ardeche, France. He immigrated to Canada with his parents Victor and Marie Justine (née Leydier) Portier and siblings Celina and Clement via New York in August of 1902. The family settled in Norman, a small community just west of Rat Portage (later renamed Kenora), Ontario…. Read More »

Mack, William

Sapper William Mack enlisted with the Canadian Engineers in February 1917 and served in France and Belgium for a year and a half. He returned to Canada in May 1919. William was born on 24 May 1893 in Superior, Douglas County, Wisconsin. His father, Matt Makynen, was born in Finland and immigrated to the U.S…. Read More »