Deseronto Archives

On this day in 2018, Con Barnhart died in No. 12 Canadian General Hospital in Bramshott, England of meningitis.

Con was buried in St. Mary’s Churchyard, Bramshott.

He is also remembered on the Deseronto war memorial.

On this day in 1918 David John Powless died of pneumonia at 913 Dundas Street, Toronto. He had been discharged four weeks earlier from the army due to being over age (he was a few weeks shy of his fiftieth birthday). He had served overseas for 22 months.

Initially the Dominion Pension Board refused to pay his widow, Rose, a pension, as Powless had already been discharged when he died. The Toronto Star took up her case, claiming that the widow and her children were surviving on $8 a week, the earnings of her daughter.

This photograph from the newspaper shows Rose with Douglas, Florence, Edwin, Mayford and Alfred.

On February 20th, 1919 the Toronto Star reported that:

The attending physician gave his certificate that Pte. Powless would undoubtedly have recovered had it not been for the fact that service overseas had undermined his constitution. But owing to the fact that death occurred after discharge, and there was no disability on record, no pension was granted to the widow on her application. The board at Ottawa wrote that the regulations did not permit it.

Just before Christmas the G.W.V.A. [Great War Veterans’ Association] found Mrs. Powless in a destitute condition, the earnings of her 15-year-old daughter being her sole income. They gave what relief they could, and other societies joined with them. After an application had again been refused at Ottawa, the case was taken up by Central Branch G.W.V.A., and was reinvestigated by the Ontario office of the board.

The decision not to grant her a pension was changed in her favour when the case was reconsidered under public pressure. She was granted a full pension of $936 per year.

Between 1918 and 1920, Rose Powless moved to Michigan with Thomas John Collick and her four youngest children.  David John Powless’s five children from his first marriage with Louisa Maracle all stayed in Canada. Rose had two more children with Thomas Collick and died in Otsego, Michigan in April 1967.

David John Powless was buried in Prospect Cemetery, Toronto.

Benjamin Lawrence Woundy died of pneumonia caused by Spanish flu on this day in 1918 at Camp Rathbun hospital in Deseronto. He had joined the Royal Air Force as a pilot cadet in Toronto on April 8th, 1918 with the service number 171339. He was five feet seven inches tall and was a bank clerk from Grand Bank, Newfoundland. The Royal Air Force casualty card for Woundy notes that he was admitted to hospital on November 21st.

Immigration records pick up Woundy arriving in Halifax, Nova Scotia from Newfoundland in November 1916, giving his occupation as ‘student’. In July 1917 he left Halifax for Havana, Cuba, by which time he was a bank teller. He arrived in Ontario on April 5th, 1918 via New York state.

Benjamin’s parents, James and Elizabeth Woundy, buried him in the Grand Bank United Church Cemetery.

Thomas Peter Wims died in Glasgow, Scotland, on this day in 1918 of influenza in the 3rd Scottish General Hospital (Stobhill Hospital).

He was buried in the Glasgow Western Necropolis.

 

Stephen Kennedy Burgess died of pneumonia, caused by Spanish flu, on this day in 1918. He was a fireman who had joined the Royal Air Force in Toronto on July 24th, 1918 as a labourer. He was five feet six and three quarter inches tall and his regimental number was 270201.

Burgess was born in Owen Sound on September 7th, 1896, the son of Stephen Burgess and Margaret Jane (née Whiteside). He was living in Collingwood when he enlisted. He died at the hospital at Camp Rathbun in Deseronto after 96 days of service.

Stephen was buried in the Collingwood Presbyterian Cemetery.