Kenora Great War Project

 

Personal Details
Date of BirthJune 6, 1892
Place of BirthGlasgow, Lanarkshire
CountryScotland
Marital StatusSingle
Next of KinCharles Frederick Wulff (father), 36 Elder Park Street, Glasgow, Scotland
Trade / CallingSeaman
ReligionPresbyterian
Service Details
Regimental Number439089
Service RecordLink to Service Record
Battalion52nd Battalion
ForceCanadian Expeditionary Force
BranchCanadian Infantry
Enlisted / ConscriptedEnlisted
Place of EnlistmentKenora, Ontario
Date of EnlistmentFebruary 3, 1915
Age at Enlistment22
Theatre of ServiceCanada
Prisoner of WarNo
Survived WarYes
Death Details

Wulff, Oscar

Private Oscar Wulff was the son of Charles and Helen Wulff of Glasgow, Scotland. Charles was born in Hamburg, Germany and Helen in Scotland. They were married in 1883. Oscar was born in Glasgow in 1892 and he had at least four older siblings: Ella (1885), Matilda (1886), Carl (1888) and Margaret “Daisy” (1890). His mother also had children from a previous marriage. Charles was a shipwright and both Oscar and his brother Carl became seamen. Helen died in 1906 and when the 1911 census of England was taken Oscar was a coal trimmer on a ship berthed in Greater London. Sometime after that he immigrated to Canada. His sister Ella (Mrs. James Drinnan) also moved to Canada and in 1911 she was living in Saskatchewan with her husband and two children.

The war started in August 1914 and Oscar enlisted six months later in Kenora, Ontario. His occupation was seaman and next of kin was his father in Glasgow. He gave his date of birth as 6 June 1890. He enlisted on 3 February 1915 when recruits were being raised for a third overseas contingent. The Kenora volunteers were briefly attached to the 44th Battalion but when the 52nd (New Ontario) Battalion was organized in mid-March they were transferred to the new unit. It was based in Port Arthur and the Kenora lads were sent there in June to join the rest of the battalion. Oscar, however, was discharged from the army on 7 April in Kenora, after two months of service, due to drunkenness and insubordination. His brother Carl served with the British merchant navy during the war.

So far, nothing is known about Oscar’s life after his time in service. His sister Ella Drinnan had at least three more children and she died in 1919, at age 34. Her husband died in northern Manitoba in 1943. Oscar’s sister Matilda Wulff immigrated to Canada in 1924, apparently on her way to Toronto to work as a domestic servant. She married Arthur Roberts and passed away in 1974 in Vernon, British Columbia. She’s buried in William’s Lake Municipal Cemetery in William’s Lake, British Columbia.

By Becky Johnson


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