Kenora Great War Project

 

Personal Details
Date of BirthAugust 12, 1867
Place of BirthToronto, Ontario
CountryCanada
Marital StatusSingle
Trade / CallingAnglican clergyman
ReligionChurch of England
Service Details
Battalion98th Regiment
ForceMilitia
BranchNon-Permanent Active Militia
Enlisted / ConscriptedEnlisted
Place of EnlistmentKenora, Ontario
Address at EnlistmentKenora, Ontario
Date of Enlistment1908
Age at Enlistment40
Theatre of ServiceCanada
Prisoner of WarNo
Survived WarYes
Death Details
Date of DeathSeptember 2, 1934
Age at Death67
Buried AtMount Pleasant Cemetery, Toronto, Ontario

McKim, Charles William

Reverend Charles William McKim was born on 12 August 1867 in Toronto, Ontario, the son of Robert McKim and Isabella Meredith. Robert and Isabella had at least five children: Robert, Isabella, Henrietta, Charles and Joseph. Charles attended Wycliffe College in Toronto and King’s College in Windsor, Nova Scotia, graduating with an M.A. He entered the Anglican ministry and his first posting was as Curate at Trinity Church in Toronto in 1899. The following year he went to Winnipeg, Manitoba where he served for six years as Assistant Rector at Holy Trinity Church.

In the fall of 1906 Reverend McKim was sent to St. Alban’s Church in Kenora, Ontario to replace the outgoing Rector, Reverend John Walter Bowden Page. Reverend Page had served there since 1892 but he and his wife had decided to move to England. Reverend McKim started his new position in Kenora in November 1906. He took a keen interest in the town’s charitable organizations and also became involved with the militia. When a company of the 98th Regiment was organized locally in April 1908 he was appointed as the unit’s Chaplain. He was confirmed as a permanent officer (Honourary Captain) in 1910. The previous year he had also become the Anglican Archdeacon for the District of Keewatin.

Reverend McKim spent the summer of 1911 in Europe and in June he was in London, England for the Coronation ceremonies of King George V. He served in Kenora for another two years before being sent to his next position in Edmonton, Alberta in 1913. During the war years Reverend McKim continued to be recorded as Honourary Captain and Chaplain of Kenora’s 98th Regiment. He was included in the officers’ lists for the Forces of the Oversea Dominions and Colonies as well as the list of militia Chaplains.

In 1924 Reverend McKim became the general missionary for the Diocese of Saskatchewan and he moved to Prince Albert. That same year Miss Phyllis Hastings Allen immigrated to Canada from England, arriving at the end of August on the SS Montrose with her destination listed as Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Phyllis was born in 1898 in Stroud, Gloucestershire, England, Her parents were Edwin Henry Allen and Janet Hastings and she had one sister, Dorothy. Her father was a railway station master. Phyllis was a teacher and by 1926 she was the principal at St. Alban’s Ladies College in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan.

Reverend McKim and Phyllis were married in Winnipeg on December 25, 1926. They made their home in Prince Albert and later in Vancouver and they had three children, Patricia, Alan and Charles. Around 1923 Reverend McKim retired due to ill health and he and his family moved to the village of Weston (now part of Toronto) in Ontario. He passed away in the Toronto General Hospital on 2 September 1934, at age 67. His obituary was printed in several newspapers including the Kenora Miner and News, the Toronto Globe, the Winnipeg Tribune, the Winnipeg Free Press and the Edmonton Journal.

Phyllis survived her husband by more than fifty years. She died in Oakville, Ontario in 1990, at age 91. Reverend McKim, his wife, his parents and his sister Isabella are all buried at Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Toronto.

By Becky Johnson

McKim grave marker photo courtesy of findagrave.com


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