Kenora Great War Project

 

Personal Details
Date of Birth1889
Place of BirthNorth Bay, Ontario
CountryCanada
Marital StatusSingle
Next of KinLarry Peever (brother), Kenora, Ontario
Trade / CallingLumberjack
ReligionChurch of England
Service Details
Regimental Number2183322
Service RecordLink to Service Record
BattalionIndependent Forestry Company, M.D. No. 10
ForceCanadian Expeditionary Force
BranchCanadian Forestry Corps
Enlisted / ConscriptedEnlisted
Place of EnlistmentWinnipeg, Manitoba
Address at EnlistmentKenora, Ontario
Date of EnlistmentMarch 2, 1917
Age at Enlistment27
Theatre of ServiceCanada
Prisoner of WarNo
Survived WarYes
Death Details
Date of DeathDecember 22, 1917
Age at Death28
Buried AtMountain View Cemetery, Vancouver, British Columbia
PlotJONES-*-14-007-0004

Peever, Moses Harvey

According to his attestation paper “Mose” Peever was born on 2 April 1881 in North Bay, Ontario. However, family and medical information in his service file confirm that he was Moses Harvey Peever, born in 1889, the son of John Peever and Jane Frost.

John Peever was of Irish ancestry and born in Ontario while his wife Jane was Scottish and from Fort Coulonge, Quebec. When the 1881 census was taken they were living in the district of Pontiac, Quebec and John was a farmer. At least five children were born in Quebec: Samuel James (1870), John Ephraim/Edward (1875), William Osborne, Henry Lawrence and Margaret Orenda (1882). Sometime after Margaret’s birth the family moved to Ontario and by 1891 they were living in Rat Portage (later renamed Kenora). Living next door or nearby were Jane’s brother Moses Frost and his family, including Moses Frost Jr.

John worked as a cook and millhand in Rat Portage and he and his wife and at least three more children: Catherine Jane (1886), Moses Harvey (1889) and Ellen. John died in Rat Portage in 1893, at age 56. Sadly, he was followed by the death of his daughter Ellen, age 3, in 1896 and his son Samuel James, age 27, in 1897. All three are buried in Lake of the Woods Cemetery in Kenora. When the next census was taken in 1901 Jane was living in Rat Portage with her six remaining children. At the time of the 1911 census she was living with Moses and Lawrence, who were both unmarried. Moses was working as a labourer and doing odd jobs while Lawrence was a teamster.

The war started in August 1914 and Moses enlisted on 2 March 1917 in Winnipeg, joining the Independent Forestry Company in Military District No. 10. His occupation was lumberjack and next of kin was his brother Larry (Lawrence) in Kenora. Elsewhere in his service file his mother Jane (Mrs. John) Peever of Kenora was listed as next of kin. Moses said he was an axeman, sawyer and teamster and he played baseball. In March 1917 he spent nine days in the hospital with pleurisy and suspected tuberculosis. He was discharged from the army in Winnipeg on 21 May 1917, as “not likely to become an efficient soldier.”

In 1917 Moses and his mother moved to Vancouver, British Columbia and lived at 2171 Hastings Street East. Moses passed away on 22 December 1917, at age 28. His funeral was held two days later and he’s buried in Mountain View Cemetery in Vancouver. His brother Lawrence also moved to Vancouver. He died in 1926, after being struck by a vehicle, and he’s interred in Mountain View too along with their mother Jane (d. 1934), their brother John Edward (d. 1961) and their sister Catherine Jane Stiles (d. 1978). Their sister Margaret Orenda (Mrs. Edward Daniel Hines) passed away in 1965 in Kenora and she’s buried in Lake of the Woods Cemetery.

By Becky Johnson


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