April 12, 2017
George Mark Maracle (who enlisted under the name Hill) was killed on this day in 1917 in the trenches near Bois de la Ville during the Battle of Vimy Ridge.
His body was not recovered. He is remembered on the Vimy memorial and in Deseronto. A letter of condolence was sent to his mother, Annie Maracle, in Point Anne on June 14th, 1917.
April 10, 2017
Orval Johns enlisted in Toronto on this day in 1917. He stated that he was born in Deseronto on June 6th, 1894 and he named his mother, Sarah Johns, as his next of kin. He was living at 48 Duncan Street in Toronto when he signed up and was working as a sawyer. Charles and Sarah John (note different spelling of the surname) were living in Tyendinaga in 1901 and in Prince Edward County in 1911 and 1921. They were both Mohawks: Sarah’s maiden name was Smart.
Johns had originally signed up on April 10th, 1916 with the 216th (Bantams) Battalion (regimental number 273404), but was discharged as medically unfit on June 27th, due to having flat feet. In 1917 he enlisted again, this time joining the Canadian Forestry Corps. He was five feet tall, with a dark complexion, brown eyes and black hair. His service record shows that he arrived in Liverpool on May 14th, 1917. He crossed the Channel to France on June 17th and served there until 1919. Orval returned to Canada on the RMS Empress of Britain in March 1919. He was demobilized on April 1st, 1919 in Toronto.
April 10, 2017
Image courtesy of FindaGrave.com
On this day in 1917, David Green died of wounds received when he was serving with the 1st Battalion at the Battle of Vimy Ridge.
Green was buried in the Lapugnoy Military Cemetery in France.
Image courtesy of FindaGrave.com
He is also remembered on the Deseronto war memorial.
April 10, 2017
On this day in 1917 Frank Bardy was killed by shell fire at the Battle of Vimy Ridge, while serving with the 27th Battalion.
War Graves Registers: Circumstances of Death; Record Group Number: RG 150, 1992-93/314; Volume Number: 149, courtesy of Library and Archives Canada
Frank’s grave was reported to be at Roclincourt, but it was not marked. He is remembered on the Vimy memorial.
April 9, 2017
On this day 100 years ago, Thomas Peter Wims signed up in Montreal. He was born in Deseronto on July 31st, 1894, the son of Patrick Wims and Jessie (née Kerr). The Wims ran a store in Deseronto in the 1890s, which Herbert Osborne photographed in around 1895. By 1901 the family had moved to Campbellford and they were living in Belleville at the time of the 1911 census. When he enlisted, Thomas was living at 17, Rue Labardie, Montreal, and working as a stenographer.
Wims joined the Canadian Field Artillery with the regimental number 1251853. He was five feet five and a half inches tall, with a fair complexion, grey eyes and dark brown hair. His service record shows that he left Halifax on the SS Olympic in April 1917. He arrived in France in November 1917.
April 5, 2017
On this day in 1917 Edith May Allison enlisted as a nursing sister in Calgary. She was born on May 14th, 1878 (she said 1881 on her form) in Tyendinaga Township, the daughter of Jonathan G. Allison and Sarah Edith (née Prentice). She was listed as a nurse in Tyendinaga in the 1901 census and was still in Tyendinaga in 1911. By 1916 she had moved and was living at the hospital in Coronation, Alberta.
Edith’s service record tells us that she was five feet seven inches tall and weighed 150 pounds when she signed up to join the Canadian Army Medical Corps. She arrived in England in May 1917 and initially served in hospitals in Brighton, Sussex. She was then posted to No. 2 Canadian Stationary Hospital in Outreau, France between June 1918 and March 1919. [War diaries for this hospital are at Library and Archives Canada.]
Edith sailed back to Canada on the SS Lapland in April 1919. She continued to work for the Corps as a nurse in Ottawa after the war, and was transferred to Colonel Belcher Hospital in Calgary on June 1st, 1919. This hospital opened in 1919 for veterans of the war.
Edith was the Matron-in-Charge of the hospital until she died there on July 10th, 1933. Her death was determined to be as a result of her war service.
Canada, War Graves Registers (Circumstances of Casualty), 1914-1948, courtesy of Library and Archives Canada
CIRCUMSTANCES OF CASUALTY
Died at Col. Belcher Hospital, Calgary, Alta.Cause – Myocarditis, etc.
Death was due to service, authority BPC.d.15-8-33
Edith’s gravestone, from ‘Great War 100 Reads’
Edith was buried in the Deseronto Cemetery, near her father, Jonathan Allison. Her mother died three years later and was also buried there.
March 28, 2017
Lewis Gordon Watson, an accountant, signed up in Winnipeg on this day in 1917. He was born in Deseronto on September 25th, 1899, the son of James William Gordon Watson and Mona (née Lewis). In 1901 the family were living in Picton and by 1911 they had moved to Brandon, Manitoba.
Watson joined the 76th Depot Battery of the Canadian Field Artillery with the regimental number 1250294. He was five feet nine inches tall, with a dark complexion, grey eyes and brown hair. His service record shows that he sailed from Halifax on the SS Missanabie on December 21st, 1917. In April 1918 he was sent overseas to join the 3rd brigade of the Canadian Field Artillery.
L. Gordon Watson returned to Canada via the SS Aquitania on May 25th,1919 and was demobilized in Toronto on May 27th. He married Margaret Caroline Denison in Toronto on September 18th, 1923. In 1925 he moved to Ohio, where, according to his obituary, he married Rachel Milligan on February 2nd, 1929, in Springfield. The couple had two children. Watson died in Wooster, Ohio on June 19th, 1994. There is a grave marker for the Watsons in the cemetery at Hamilton, Ontario.
March 20, 2017
Jacob Bernhart joined up in Vancouver on this day in 1917. He was born in Tyendinaga on January 17th, 1877, the son of David Barnhardt and Susan (née Bey), who were both Mohawks. His younger brother Joseph had enlisted in June 1916. Jacob appears to have married Nellie May Myers (or possibly Nellie May Hayley) in Nelson, British Columbia on June 20th, 1914. When he enlisted, they were living at 132 Mile House on the Cariboo Road in BC.
Bernhart originally joined the Forestry Company (he was a woodsman and sawmill hand) with the regimental number 2203445 and was transferred to the Railway Construction Company, according to his service record. He departed Halifax on August 11th, 1917 and arrived in England on the 28th. A month later he was admitted to hospital in Purfleet, Essex, suffering from pharyngitis. He was transferred to Barnwell Hospital in Cambridge, where he was treated over the next two and a half months. He was discharged on December 4th and arrived in France to join the 1st Battalion, Canadian Railway Troops on December 19th, 1917.
March 15, 2017
On this day in 1917 Clarence Mickel Pasmore, a journalist, signed his officer’s declaration paper as a lieutenant in the 216th Battalion in Toronto. He was born in Conestego, Ontario, on February 11th, 1889, the son of William Pasmore and Laura (née Hendry). By 1901, when Clarence was 12, the family were living in Deseronto, where William was working as a doctor, his daughter Annie as a nurse and his son Robert as a druggist. Clarence attended the Deseronto High School. In 1911 he was working in Regina, Saskatchewan, as a journalist. When he enlisted he was living at 514 Pape Avenue, Toronto with his parents.
His service record shows that he sailed from Halifax in May 1917 and was transferred to the 123rd Battalion in France on November 24th. On January 3rd, 1918 he was slightly wounded but remained at duty. In May 1918 he was admitted to hospital, suffering from shell shock. He was sent back to Canada on the SS Scandinavian. While on board, he contracted influenza.
A report in the Toronto World of January 11th, 1918, gives us a glimpse into Pasmore’s early war experiences:
Lieut. C. M. Pasmore Is Now Attached to Royal Grenadiers’ Unit
News has been received by Mrs. L. O. Pasmore, 514 Pape avenue, that her son, Lieut. C. M. Pasmore, has been wounded in action. Lieut. Pasmore himself cabled his mother that he had been hit, but was remaining on duty. He received his wounds while serving with the 123rd Battalion (Royal Grenadiers), Lt.-Col. W. B. Kingsmill commanding. Prior to the outbreak of the war Lieut. Pasmore was employed as a newspaperman in Toronto. After he qualified for his commission he was ppointed to the 216th (Bantams) Battalion and being over six feet in height he boasted that he was the “tallest Bantam in captivity.” On the day the Bantams left Toronto to proceed overseas it was found that the quota of officeers was greater than the strength of the battalion permitted, and Lieut. Pasmore was therefore dropped, but he was determined to get overseas and he reverted to the rank of sergeant and proceeded eastward with the unit. Before reaching the port of embarkation, however, the strength of the battalion was augmented by drafts of Bantams from eastern towns, and Lieut. Pasmmore was reinstated in his rank.
On his arrival in England he took several courses in order to render himself more proficient, and crossed to France on the 24th of November and was attached to the Royal Grenadiers battalion.
Pasmore was demobilized in January 1919 and married Estelle Maud Gordon in Deseronto on January 29th, 1921. At the time of the 1921 census the couple were living at 54 Fairview Boulevard in Toronto. Maud died in 1939 and Clarence in 1949. They are buried in Rockwood, Ontario.
March 13, 2017
William Skillen Stokes signed up in Toronto on this day in 1917. He was born in Deseronto on October 26th (or possibly 27th), 1897, the son of James Stokes and Cora (née Loucks). James was in charge of the wharf in Deseronto in the 1890s (he features in the 1892 Deseronto poem written by A. D. Macintyre). By 1901 the family had moved to Toronto and were living with Cora’s parents, James and Clarissa Loucks. In 1911 the only family member with a job was William. He was working as a stenographer in a brewery and was supporting four adults and two siblings (Clarence, 9, and Clarissa, 1). In 1913 three of the four adults died: William’s grandmother, Clarissa, died in February; his father, James, died in April in the Hospital for the Insane in Toronto, and his grandfather, James Loucks, died in June.
William joined the 70th Battery of the Canadian Field Artillery with the regimental number 341188. He had previously served in the Canadian Army Service Corps as a private for five months. He was five feet six and a half inches tall, with a fair complexion, blue eyes and brown hair. His service record shows that he arrived in England on the SS Lapland on February 24th, 1918. He went to France on May 15th and served there with the Canadian Corps Reinforcement Camp and the 13th Brigade of the Canadian Field Artillery. In December 1918 he was admitted to hospital, suffering from appendicitis. He was sent to England to recover.
Stokes’s brother Clarence enlisted on April 3rd, 1919 (aged 17 but claiming to be 19) and his mother, Cora, died of pneumonia eight days later at home in Shaw Street. William’s sister, Clarissa, was adopted by Samuel and Mary Davis and was living with them in Follis Avenue, Toronto, at the time of the 1921 census.
Stokes left Liverpool on the SS Celtic on May 7th, 1919 and was demobilized in Toronto on May 17th. His brother, Clarence, also survived the war and married Kathleen Florence Ellery in Toronto on March 4th, 1922. William was one of the witnesses to his brother’s wedding and he married Melissa Maud Burger on July 14th, 1922.
Deseronto Archives 