Kenora Great War Project

 

Personal Details
Date of BirthJuly 10, 1898
Place of BirthWinnipeg, Manitoba
CountryCanada
Marital StatusSingle
Next of KinJohn Gordon Hargrave, father, 216 Edmonton Street, Winnipeg, Manitoba
Trade / CallingEx student
ReligionMethodist
Service Details
Regimental Number327855
Service Record Link to Service Record
Battalion61st Battery, 14th Brigade
ForceCanadian Expeditionary Force
BranchCanadian Field Artillery
Enlisted / ConscriptedEnlisted
Date of EnlistmentMarch 7, 1916
Age at Enlistment17
Theatre of ServiceEurope
Prisoner of WarNo
Survived WarYes
Death Details
Date of DeathFebruary 20, 1959
Age at Death60
Buried AtSt John's Cathedral Cemetery, Winnipeg, Manitoba

Hargrave, John Clifford

John Clifford Hargrave was born on 10 July 1898 in Winnipeg, Manitoba. His father John Gordon Hargrave was from Perth, Ontario, and had come to the Red River Settlement with his family around 1873 where his father founded Hargrave and Company a few years later. First a retail and wholesale grocery and coal and wood supply depot, it began railway grading work during the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway, Canadian Northern Railway, Grand Trunk Pacific Railway, and Canadian National Railway. It was later incorporated as J G Hargrave Company. John married his first wife Mary McLean in 1885 in Winnipeg and together they had two children Gordon John (1886) and Evelyn (1889). Mary died a few months later that year, with John marrying Jessie Merson Reid on 16 October 1894 in Winnipeg. Born in 1872 in Strathroy, Ontario, Jessie was the daughter of John Reid, a grocer, and Catherine Fraser. John and Jessie gave birth to daughter Mona the next year, followed by Clifford, and then daughter Dorothy in 1900. Sadly, Dorothy died in August of 1901.

Clifford signed his attestation papers with the 59th Battery, 15th Brigade, Canadian Field Artillery on 1 March 1916 in Winnipeg. His occupation was given as ex student, his date of birth as 10 July 1897, and his father John on Edmonton Street in Winnipeg as next of kin.

Clifford arrived in England aboard the Metagama on 22 September 1916. In mid December, at Aldershot, he was hospitalized with a case of measles. Discharged on 8 January 1917, he was readmitted to the Military Isolation Hospital at Aldershot on the 26th with parotoditis, discharged on 15 February. In late January of 1917 his unit was absorbed by the 61st Battery, 14th Brigade, CFA. With rank of Gunner, Clifford arrived in France on 22 August 1917 to serve for the duration of the war. He returned to England in May of 1919 and embarked for Canada aboard the Scotian on 11 June. Clifford was discharged from service on 25 June 1919.

After the war Clifford returned to Winnipeg, found living with his parents and sister Mona on Grosvenor Avenue for the 1921 census. His father’s occupation was given as coal merchant and Clifford’s as a clerk. On 2 September 1941, in Winnipeg, Clifford married widow Mary Mildred Reade. Born about 1901 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Mary was the daughter of James Cotton and Mary Conley. She had married William Foley in the district of St Louis in Minnesota in 1921, later marrying Dee Reade in 1927 in Ironwood, Michigan. Dee was a hotel keeper, managing a hotel in Fargo, North Dakota at the time of the marriage. In 1929 Dee and Mary moved to Winnipeg to manage the St Regis Hotel and then on to Kenora around 1932 to manage the Tourist Hotel, renaming the hotel to the Kenricia. Dee died of pneumonia in April of 1937 in Minneapolis/St Paul while visiting family. By 1944 Clifford and Mary were living in Kenora on 1st Avenue South, Clifford working as a contractor/merchant with the Kenora Lumber and Supply Company. A later record gave his occupation as investments salesman.

Clifford died on 20 February 1959 of congestive failure due to arterio sclerosis in the Tarpon Springs Hospital in Tarpon Springs, Florida. His wife Mary had died just days earlier on 9 February in Palm Beach as a result of a fall. Clifford and Mary had travelled to Florida earlier that month, arriving three days before Mary’s death. Clifford was predeceased by his mother Jessie in 1922 and father John in 1931, both in Winnipeg, and his brother Gordon in 1936 in New York. At the time of his death he was survived by his sisters Evelyn Carse and Mona Shore. Mona later died in 1971 in Winnipeg and Evelyn in 1974 in Vancouver. Clifford and Mary are interred in the family plot in St John’s Cathedral Cemetery in Winnipeg.

By Judy Stockham

Gravemarker photo: BillionGraves.com

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