Winter, George Wilfred

Gunner George Wilfred Winter enlisted with the Canadian Field Artillery in April 1917. He served for two years in Canada, the UK, France and Belgium.

George was the youngest son of John Roantree Winter and Clara Lucinda Tremear. John and Clara were both born in Ontario and they were married in 1891 in Pickering, Ontario County. They had three sons: William (1892), Herbert (1894) and George (22 September 1897). George was born in Pickering and his family was still living there at the time of the 1901 census. By 1911 they had moved to the town of Kenora in northwestern Ontario where John was employed as a bookkeeper.

George enlisted in Winnipeg on 26 March 1917, joining the 76th Depot Battery, Canadian Field Artillery. He attested and had his medical exam two weeks later, on 9 April.  He was 19 years old at the time, living in Kenora and working as a clerk. He was found fit for overseas service and in May he headed to Petawawa Camp in Ontario for training. He was sent to the UK seven months later with his unit’s 6th overseas draft. They embarked from St. John, New Brunswick on the SS Missanabie on 19 December and arrived in Glasgow at the end of the month. On 1 January 1918 George was transferred to the Canadian Field Artillery Reserve Brigade at Witley Camp in Sussex. He was sent to France at the end of May and he spent about two months with the CFA Pool. In early August he was transferred to the 8th Brigade, CFA and he joined his new unit in the field later that month.

The final period of the war, known now as the Hundred Days Offensive, started in August with the Battle of Amiens and ended in November with the Armistice. The Canadians were heavily involved in the operations during those last three months. A few days after George joined the 8th Brigade they moved to the Arras area for the 2nd Battle of Arras and the assault on the Drocourt-Quéant Line. At the end of September they took part in the crossing of the Canal du Nord then continued moving northeast past Cambrai. When the Armistice ended hostilities on 11 November they were just west of Mons, Belgium. Along with the 3rd and 4th Canadian Divisions they spent the next three months in Belgium. George’s unit entrained for Le Havre on 13 February 1919 and sailed for England on the Queen Alexandria on 2 March. Most of the men were immediately given eight days leave. They embarked for Canada on 27 March on the HMT Northland, landing at Halifax on 5 April. George was discharged on demobilization four days later in Winnipeg.

George’s parents had moved to Winnipeg while he was overseas and after the war he made his home there too. He was hired by Ogilvie Flour Mills and he worked for them for the next 41 years. He married Gwendoline Ethel Doris Acott on 29 August 1923 in Winnipeg. Gwendoline was born in Hornsey, Middlesex, England in 1897, the oldest child of Hubert and Alice Acott. Her family immigrated to Canada in November 1904 and they settled in Winnipeg. George and Gwendoline had one child, their daughter Evelyn Joan who was born in December 1931. Gwendoline passed away in 1953, at age 56, and George remarried two years later. His second wife, Florence Nellie Osborne, was born in Winnipeg in 1913 and she worked as a clerk and stenographer.

George passed away in Grace Hospital on 20 February 1961, at age 63. His funeral was held on 23 February and he’s buried in the Kildonan Presbyterian Cemetery next to his first wife. Florence survived him by 39 years, passing away in February 2000. George’s daughter Evelyn Joan (Mrs. Bill Hayes) died in 2004, at age 72, and she’s buried at Chapel Lawn Memorial Gardens in Winnipeg.

By Becky Johnson

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