Kenora Great War Project

 

Personal Details
Date of BirthFebruary 17, 1897
Place of BirthKeewatin, Ontario
CountryCanada
Marital StatusSingle
Next of KinMrs. Margaret Green (mother), 255 Keith Road West, North Vancouver
Trade / CallingCarpenter
ReligionPresbyterian
Service Details
Regimental Number2007328
Service Record Link to Service Record
Battalion3rd Canadian Engineers Reserve Battalion
ForceCanadian Expeditionary Force
BranchCanadian Engineers
Enlisted / ConscriptedConscripted
Address at Enlistment255 Keith Road West, North Vancouver
Date of EnlistmentJanuary 7, 1918
Age at Enlistment20
Theatre of ServiceGreat Britain
Prisoner of WarNo
Survived WarYes
Death Details
Date of Death19440117
Age at Death46
Buried AtOcean View Burial Park, Burnaby, British Columbia

Green, Alfred James

Lance Corporal Alfred James Green was the youngest son of James Calder Green and Margaret McLeod of North Vancouver, British Columbia. His parents both immigrated to Canada from Scotland, James as a child in the early 1860s and Margaret in 1884. They were married in Rat Portage, Ontario in September 1886. They settled in Rat Portage (now called Kenora), later moving to the nearby town of Keewatin, and they had five children: Annie Louisa (1887), Frank Poole (1888), Eunice Ellen (1892), Alexander John (1895) and Alfred James (b. 17 February 1897 in Keewatin). They also raised a niece, Mary Christina McLeod, the youngest daughter of Margaret’s brother Duncan McLeod. Mary Christina’s mother had died in 1899 in childbirth.

Alfred’s family moved to BC around 1911 and when the census was taken that year they were living in North Vancouver at 255 Keith Road West, their home for the next thirty years. Conscription started in Canada in 1917 and single men age 20 to 34 were required to register that fall. Alfred had his medical in Vancouver on 20 November and he was found fit for overseas service. He was called up a few weeks later, on 7 January 1918, and assigned to the Canadian Engineers Training Depot. Drafts of recruits were sent overseas as needed and Alfred went with No. 74 Draft at the end of June, embarking on the SS Tunisian and arriving in England on 22 July. He was transferred to the 2nd Canadian Engineers Reserve Battalion then, two weeks later, to the 3rd Canadian Engineers Reserve Battalion.

Alfred’s unit was based at Seaford in Sussex and he was appointed Acting Lance Corporal on 23 September. The Armistice ended hostilities on the Western Front in November and he served in England for another seven months. He sailed from Southampton on 14 June on the SS Aquitania, arriving in Halifax on 20 June and getting discharged on demobilization on 26 June in Vancouver. His intended residence was his family’s home on Keith Road West. His uncle Duncan McLeod (Mary Christina’s father) enlisted at age 50 and served in France. He was wounded twice and invalided back to Canada in January 1918. Mary Christina was a school teacher and sadly she passed away in the North Vancouver Hospital in August 1919, at age 20. Like her own mother, she died in childbirth and she left an infant daughter, Eileen.

When the 1921 census was taken Alfred was living at home and employed as a steelworker at a ship yard. Eileen was listed with the family as an adopted daughter, age one. Alfred was married in Vancouver on 28 August 1923 to 21-year-old Edith Frazer Leslie. Edith was born in Paisley, Scotland, the oldest daughter of Thomas Leslie and Edith McGuire. She came to Canada with her parents as a child and they lived in the North Vancouver area. Alfred and Edith had at least five children: James, William, Charles, Margaret and Edith. Alfred continued working at ship yards and he was a member of the Boilermakers and Iron Shipbuilders’ Union of Canada.

Alfred’s mother passed away in March 1926, at age 68. Alfred died suddenly at work at a North Vancouver ship yard on 17 January 1944, a month before his 47th birthday. His funeral was held two days later and he’s buried at Ocean View Burial Park in Burnaby. His father passed away later that same year and he is interred with his wife Margaret in Mountain View Cemetery in Vancouver. Alfred’s brother Frank (1888-1946) and his sister Mrs. Annie Smart (1887-1954) are both buried at Capilano View Cemetery in West Vancouver. His sister Mrs. Eunice Ellis died in North Vancouver in 1965. His brother Alexander (1895-1976) and Edith’s parents, Thomas and Edith Leslie, are interred at North Vancouver Cemetery.

By Becky Johnson

Green-Alfred-James-90

Obituary and grave marker photo courtesy of Mike Melen.


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