William Wesley Quackenbush signature

William Wesley Quackenbush, a brakeman, signed up in Montreal on this day in 1918. He was born in Deseronto in October 1891 (the birth registration says on October 3rd, he stated October 10th when he enlisted). His parents were Edley Alexander Quackenbush and Ida (née Lewis). His father died in 1896 and his mother married Edward Badgley in 1897. In 1910 Wesley and his brother Bernard were living with their uncle, Goldie Lewis and his wife Ruby, in Sandy Creek, New York. He gave his mother’s address as 2 Waite Avenue, Watertown, New York when he enlisted.

Quackenbush joined the 1st Depot Battalion of the 1st Quebec Regiment with the regimental number 3083937. He was five feet tall, with a dark complexion, brown eyes and dark brown hair. His service record shows that he arrived in England on the SS Oxfordshire on July 15th, 1918. He was admitted to hospital for a month in Bramshott on October 17th, suffering from influenza. The following May, he was in hospital again, in Ripon, with tuberculosis. On July 12th, 1919 he was invalided home to Canada and spent a month in hospital in Montreal with chronic bronchitis from July 22nd.

Wesley was demobilized in Montreal on August 25th, 1919. He married Mina White in 1927. There is more information about him and his brother Bernard on the Litchfield family tree. He died in Watertown, New York on June 10th, 1981.