Kenora Great War Project

 

Personal Details
Date of BirthNovember 19, 1897
Place of BirthKenora, Ontario
CountryCanada
Marital StatusSingle
Next of KinAlbert Goulet (father), Kenora, Ontario
Trade / CallingStudent
ReligionRoman Catholic
Service Details
Regimental Number2650747
Service Record Link to Service Record
BattalionCanadian Field Artillery Reserve Brigade
ForceCanadian Expeditionary Force
BranchCanadian Field Artillery
Enlisted / ConscriptedEnlisted
Place of EnlistmentWinnipeg, Manitoba
Address at Enlistment97 Masson Street, St Boniface, Manitoba
Date of EnlistmentMarch 4, 1918
Age at Enlistment20
Theatre of ServiceGreat Britain
Prisoner of WarNo
Survived WarYes
Death Details
Date of DeathApril 22, 1990
Age at Death92
Buried AtLake of the Woods Cemetery, Kenora, Ontario
Plot66E-15-2

Goulet, Raymond

Gunner Raymond Goulet enlisted in March 1918 and served for a year with the Canadian Field Artillery, most of that time in England. He returned to Canada in April 1919.

Raymond was the son of Albert and Marie Louise Goulet and the grandson of Elzéar Goulet. During the 1860s Elzéar was the mail carrier between Pembina, Dakota Territory and the Red River Settlement in Manitoba. He and his wife had six children, including Albert who was born in Pembina in 1864. The family moved from Pembina to the Red River Settlement around 1869, when Albert was five years old. During the Resistance Elzéar became a follower of Louis Riel and a member of the Métis armed force. He drowned in the Red River in September 1870, while being pursued by soldiers from the Wolseley expedition.

At the time of the 1891 census Albert and all three of his brothers were living in Rat Portage (later called Kenora), in northwestern Ontario. Albert and Elzéar Jr. were working as labourers, Alfred was a miner and Roger was a law student. Albert married Marie Louise Parenteau in 1892 in St. Boniface, Manitoba. They settled in Rat Portage and had at least four children: Adelard (1896), Raymond (19 November 1897), Elise (1898) and Marius (1902). Marie Louise died in Rat Portage in July 1902, two weeks after Marius was born. Albert married his second wife, Eleanore Gauthier, in 1903 in St. Boniface. His brother Roger was married to Eleanore’s sister Lumina Gauthier. Albert and Eleanore had at least one child, a son Laurent.

Raymond was 16 years old when the war started. His cousin Alfred Jules Goulet enlisted underage when he was just 15, and after serving in France he was discharged in December 1917 due to being a minor. Alfred enlisted again in January 1918 and Raymond signed up two months later. Raymond was a student at the time, 20 years old and living in St. Boniface. Next of kin was his father Albert in Kenora. He enlisted in Winnipeg on 4 March, joining the 76th Depot Battery, Canadian Field Artillery. From 1 April to 4 May he was a patient at St. Boniface Hospital, getting treatment for an ear infection. He embarked for England with No. 32 Draft of the 76th Depot Battery, sailing on 20 June on the SS Waimana and arriving in England on 7 July. Raymond was almost deaf in his right ear, due to the infection he had in the spring, and because of that he was not sent to France. For the next eight months he served in the UK with the Reserve Brigade of the Canadian Field Artillery, the Command Brigade of the Royal Artillery and the Canadian School of Gunnery.

Raymond returned to Canada in the spring of 1919, embarking from Liverpool on 24 March on the SS Canada and arriving in Halifax on 1 April. He was discharged on demobilization on 5 April in Winnipeg. By then his father was farming at the Northwest Angle, on the western side of Lake of the Woods. Raymond joined him there, where he homesteaded and worked as a fishing guide. He also took temporary jobs as a farm labourer in Manitoba. For many years he was employed as a mate and assistant captain on tugboats on Lake of the Woods. By 1945 he had moved to Sioux Narrows, where he worked for about twenty years as a fire and forest ranger for the Department of Lands and Forests. He retired in the early 1970s and settled in Kenora, and his last years were spent at Pinecrest Home for the Aged.

Raymond passed away in Kenora on 22 April 1990, at age 92. His funeral was held four days later and he’s buried in Lake of the Woods Cemetery. He was in an unmarked grave but a veteran grave marker was provided by the Last Post Fund in October 2018.

By Becky Johnson

Goulet-Ray-90 Goulet-Ray-91 Goulet-Ray-92
Photo is from: Beyond the Bridge: Sioux Narrows (Sioux Narrows Historical Committee, 1985).


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