Ira Alfred Claus signature

On this day in 1915, Ira Alfred Claus signed up in Gananoque, Ontario. He was born on March 1st, 1884 in Tyendinaga, the son of Samuel Claus and Ellen (or Elinor), née Loft, who were Mohawks.

Claus joined the 59th Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force with the regimental number 455812. He had previously seen service in the 49th Hastings Rifles and the 5th Field Battery. On signing up he was described as five feet three and a half inches tall, with a dark complexion, brown eyes and black hair.

Ira Claus’s service record shows that he arrived in England on April 11th, 1916 and was transferred to the 26th Battalion when in Europe. He seems to have spent much of 1916 in hospital, and was sent back to England with appendicitis in September of that year. After recovering from the operation he served in reserve battalions and in the Canadian Forestry Corps in England until the end of the war. He married Bertha Sarah Brown, a domestic cook, in England on July 11th, 1918.

Claus was discharged as medically unfit for further service in Toronto on March 3rd, 1919. He died in 1957.