Deseronto Archives

Henry Ker Coleman, a bank clerk, signed up in Kingston, Ontario on this day in 1917. He was born in Deseronto on January 30th, 1897, the son of John Coleman and Julia (née MacMorine). By 1901 the family had moved to Stirling and they were living in Merrickville in 1911. When he enlisted, Henry gave his father’s address as Napanee and his own as 15 Court House Avenue, Brockville.

Henry joined the 72nd Battery of the Canadian Field Artillery with the regimental number 342974. He was five feet six and a half inches tall, with a dark complexion, brown eyes and brown hair. His unit arrived in England on the SS Ausonia on April 29th, 1917. His service record notes that he joined the 1st Canadian Divisional Ammunition Column in France on August 24th, 1917. He returned to England on March 30th, 1919.

Coleman left England on the RMS Olympic on April 15th, 1919 and was demobilized in Kingston nine days later. He married Stella Agnes Sweitzer on April 3rd, 1923 in Napanee, when he gave his occupation as ‘Clerk in Holy Orders’. Family tree information on Ancestry suggests that he died on November 30th, 1980, in Brockville.