Kenora Great War Project

 

Personal Details
Date of BirthJuly 4, 1877
Place of BirthBath, Lennox County, Ontario
CountryCanada
Marital StatusMarried
Next of KinOlive Sinclair Elliott (wife), Winnipeg, Manitoba
Trade / CallingLumberman
ReligionChurch of England
Service Details
Regimental NumberN/A
Service RecordLink to Service Record
BattalionCanadian Forestry Corps Depot
ForceCanadian Expeditionary Force
BranchCanadian Forestry Corps
Enlisted / ConscriptedEnlisted
Place of EnlistmentWinnipeg, Manitoba
Address at EnlistmentRoyal Alexandra Hotel, Winnipeg, Manitoba
Date of EnlistmentMay 1, 1917
Age at Enlistment39
Theatre of ServiceGreat Britain
Prisoner of WarNo
Survived WarYes
Death Details
Date of DeathDecember 9, 1949
Age at Death72
Buried AtBrookside Cemetery, Winnipeg, Manitoba
PlotMlty-3155-0

Elliott, Porter Preston

Captain Porter Preston Elliott was the son of John Charles Elliott and Jemima Preston. He was born on 4 July 1877 in Bath, Lennox County, Ontario, one of at least eight children. His father, a school teacher, was born in Ireland and his mother in Ontario (Upper Canada). Porter became a lumber merchant and moved to the town of Fort Frances in the Rainy River District in northwestern Ontario. He was married there on 28 October 1908. His wife, Olive Sinclair Preston, was born in 1885 in Kingston, Ontario. Her parents were William Alfred Preston and Jessie Sinclair and she was likely a cousin to Porter. Her father was the Member of the Provincial Parliament for Rainy River and he was also involved in the lumber industry.

Porter and Olive had one child, Porter Preston Elliott Jr. He was born in Fort Frances in 1911 and sadly he died at age two months. He’s buried in the Preston family plot at Brookside Cemetery in Winnipeg. Porter and his wife moved to Winnipeg around the time the war started and he was commissioned as an officer on 1 May 1917. He said he had already served for a year in Military District No. 11 (British Columbia). His occupation was lumberman and he was assigned to the #4 Draft of the Canadian Forestry Corps. Porter embarked from Halifax on 22 June 1917 and arrived in Liverpool about twelve days later. He was transferred to the Canadian Corps Depot at Sunningdale where he served for several months.

In November Porter had an attack of pleurisy. He recovered at No. 3 London General Hospital in Wandsworth for about two weeks, followed by another two weeks at a convalescent depot. It wasn’t his first attack of pleurisy and a medical board recommended that he be invalided to Canada due to his chronic illness. He sailed from Liverpool on 7 December 1917 on the SS Justicia, arriving in Canada via New York on 19 December. He was discharged from service five days later. In August 1919 a board of pension commissioners in Winnipeg found that he was still suffering from pleurisy as well as chronic bronchitis. Later that same year he was awarded a war service gratuity.

When the 1921 census was taken Porter was living in the village of Minaki in northwestern Ontario. He was listed as married and his occupation was lumberman. His wife Olive was living in Winnipeg and working as a stenographer for a grain company. Sometime in the next few years they divorced and both remarried. Olive married Dr. Laurence Thorton Ainley, a war veteran, in 1926 in Winnipeg. Porter married Jessie Donalda Morrison on 29 November 1930, also in Winnipeg.

Porter passed away in Deer Lodge Hospital on 9 December 1949, at age 72. His funeral was held three days later and he’s buried in the Field of Honour at Brookside Cemetery.

By Becky Johnson


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