Kenora Great War Project

 

Personal Details
Date of BirthJuly 14, 1897
Place of BirthElkhorn, Manitoba
CountryCanada
Marital StatusSingle
Next of KinIsaac Faulconer, father, Shortdale, Manitoba
Trade / CallingFarmer
ReligionPresbyterian
Service Details
Regimental Number718611
Service Record Link to Service Record
Battalion107th Pioneer Battalion
ForceCanadian Expeditionary Force
BranchCanadian Infantry
Enlisted / ConscriptedEnlisted
Address at EnlistmentShortdale, Manitoba
Date of EnlistmentFebruary 15, 1916
Age at Enlistment18
Theatre of ServiceEurope
Prisoner of WarNo
Survived WarYes
Death Details
Date of DeathMay 26, 1975
Age at Death38
Buried AtBrookside Cemetery, Winnipeg, Manitoba
PlotMlty-7559-0

Faulconer, Isaac

Isaac James (Ike) Faulconer was born on 14 July 1897 in the Elkhorn area in the RM of Wallace, Manitoba. His father Isaac James Faulconer, son of Irish immigrants, was from Caledon, Ontario while his mother Mary Ann (Annie) Harper was from Halton County, Ontario. Her family had moved to Warwick, Lambton County to farm when she was a child. Isaac and Annie married on 18 November 1886 in Warwick where the couple was also to farm. Children born in Ontario were Jane Eliza (Jennie) in 1889, Robert William (Bob) in 1890, George Franklin (Frank) in 1892, and Florence Edith in 1894. By the next year and the time of the birth of their next child, Henry Lovern, the family had relocated to the Elkhorn area to farm. In 1899 daughter Ellen Margaret (Nellie) was born. At some point before the 1911 census the family moved north to Shortdale, near Roblin, to farm. It appears that Isaac also worked in the local sawmill.

With occupation given as farmer and his father Isaac in Shortdale as next of kin, Ike signed his attestation papers on 15 February 1916 in Winnipeg. His year of birth was recorded as 1898. After training at Camp Hughes, as a Private with the 107th Battalion, Ike embarked from Halifax aboard the SS Olympic on 18 September 1916. Once in England the battalion was converted to the 107th Pioneer Battalion and landed in France on 25 February 1917. In conjunction with Engineers, Pioneer Battalions worked in the forward areas consolidating positions captured by the infantry, tunnelling, mining, wiring, railroad work, deep dugout work, and laying out, building and keeping trenches in repair.

In January of 1918 Ike was granted a fourteen day leave to Paris, returning on the 27th. That April his battalion was in the Achicourt area in northern France. They had been working on deepening, repairing, and constructing fire bays, laying wire for communication trenches, and repairing trenches destroyed by shell fire. On April 7th there was considerable hostile shelling of the area and Ike sustained a wound to the chest. First admitted to a field ambulance, Ike was transferred to the No 8 Casualty Clearing Station the next day. By the 13th he was a patient at the No 24 General Hospital in Etaples, a cable sent to his father in Shortdale on the 23rd. Ike was invalided to England on the 26th and admitted to the De Walden Court Hospital in Eastbourne. In May he spent a couple of days in the No 14 General Hospital in Meads, Eastbourne before being transferred to the Princess Patricia Canadian Red Cross Hospital, Cooden Camp in Bexhill. Ike was discharged on July 19th but as the shrapnel/bullet could not be removed and he had continual pain in his chest, unable to do service physical training, it was decided that he should return to Canada. Embarking on September 23rd, Ike was discharged from service in Winnipeg as medically unfit on November 11th, the day of the signing of the armistice.

Ike returned to Shortdale, and on 20 November 1920, in nearby Grandview, he married Bertha Alice Coulter. Born on 14 April 1904 in Wawanesa but raised in Grandview, Bertha was the daughter of John and Ellen (née Sullivan) Coulter. With the end of the First World War and the troops that would be returning from Europe in mind, Canada’s 1917 Soldier Settlement Act, and its 1919 revision, made land grants and loans available to soldiers. A person who had been in active service during the First World War and who was eligible for a free homestead entry under the Soldier Settlement Act was known as a Soldier Settler. Under the act, Ike was granted two parcels of land in the Shortdale area where he and Bertha farmed until 1942. Children born to the couple were Marie, Isaac (Spike), Alyce, Eileen, Vera, Nadine, and Wayne. Twins and another child were also born but died at birth. In 1942 they moved to Grandview where Ike worked as a mechanic in Orr’s Garage, and then on to Keewatin in northwestern Ontario in 1944. Ike was employed at the Lake of the Woods Flour Mill for fourteen years followed by the Lake of the Woods Hospital for seven years, retiring in 1965. He was a member of the Keewatin Branch of the Canadian Legion.

Ike and Bertha later moved to Winnipeg where Ike passed away on 26 May 1975 at the St Boniface Hospital. He had been a member of the Elmwood Branch of the Canadian Legion. A funeral service for Ike was held at the Thompson Funeral Chapel followed by interment in the military section of Brookside Cemetery, Winnipeg. Ike was predeceased by his mother Annie (1931), his father Isaac (1944), his son Spike (1957) and siblings Florence (1961), Bob (1968), and Frank (1971). Bertha returned to the Kenora/Keewatin area where she died in the Pinecrest Home for the Aged on 4 April 1996. She is interred in the Lake of the Woods Cemetery in Kenora.

by Judy Stockham

gravemarker photo: provided by Bocephus, findagrave.com

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