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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Lough, Russell Emerson

According to his attestation papers, Russell Emerson Lough was born on 12 February 1895 in Buckingham, Quebec. His parents John Robert and Helen (Nellie) (née Storey) Lough had married on 27 November 1889 in Buckingham although neither were of French Canadian descent. It appears that their first child, George Garfield, born in 1891, died less… Read More »

Lusby, Ernest

Ernest Lusby was born on 14 June 1895 in Cotherstone, Yorkshire in England. His mother was Catherine Canning who was born in 1859 in Liverpool. Catherine married William Gilray, a mariner, in November of 1877 in Liverpool. In February of 1880 she then married William Lawson, Catherine listed as a widow on the marriage record… Read More »

McKenna, John Archibald

Although the family lived in Mill Village, Queen’s County, Nova Scotia, John Archibald (Jack) McKenna was born on 1 February 1880 in nearby Charleston. Both of his parents Joseph McKenna and Mary Jane Arthur were from Nova Scotia, marrying in 1869 in Liverpool. Over the years Joseph’s occupation was given as labourer on the censuses,… 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 »

Harvey, Samuel

Samuel Harvey was one of a dozen Kenora/Keewatin area men to fall in the Second Battle Passchendaele which took place between Oct. 26 and Nov. 10 of 1917, to the east of Ipres (Ypres), Belgium.  Called on to replace battered British and Australian/New Zealand troops, the 100,000 strong Canadian Corps used a multi-phase plan of… Read More »

McLean, Athol Archibald

The Battle of the Somme lasted from 1 July to 18 November 1916 and resulted in over a million casualties for all the forces involved. The Germans refer to the battle as ‘the blood bath’ and the Somme has been called the graveyard of armies. On the first day alone the British army suffered 57,000… Read More »

Dougherty, William Edward

Cadet William Edward Dougherty enlisted in April 1916 and served for over two years with the Canadian Infantry in England and France. He was in training as a Royal Air Force Cadet when the Armistice was signed in November 1918. William was the youngest son of Thomas Arthur and Mary Dougherty of Kenora, Ontario. Thomas… Read More »

McKenzie, Donald

Donald MacKenzie was born on 13 November 1893 in Upper Bayble, Stornoway, County of Ross, Scotland. His father Alexander MacKenzie and mother Flora MacRae had married 22 January 1884 in Stornoway, Alexander’s occupation listed as fisherman. By the 1901 Scotland census household members were parents Alexander and Flora, and children Angus (16), Isabella (14), Roderick… Read More »

Sinclair, Leslie Foster John

Kenora’s David George Sinclair and his wife Eliza Ann Bock had four sons that served in WW1 – Leslie Foster John (born 1887), Levi Wilmot (born 1893), Roy Frederick (born 1895) and Benjamin Elton (born 1899). The family arrived in Rat Portage (Kenora) in 1903 and settled north of town in the rural area of… Read More »

Collins, George Donald

George Donald Collins was born on 26 October 1884 in Rat Portage (later renamed Kenora), Ontario. His father Matthew Collins, the son of Irish immigrants, was  born in  New Brunswick, while his mother Margaret McNeil was born in Levis, Quebec. George’s maternal grandfather Donald McNeil, born in Nova Scotia, was one of the Intercolonial Railway’s… Read More »