Kenora Great War Project

 

Personal Details
Date of BirthMarch 14, 1896
Place of BirthThessalon, Ontario
CountryCanada
Marital StatusMarried
Next of KinMrs. Veleta Brash (wife), Copper Cliff, Ontario
Trade / CallingElectrician
ReligionMethodist
Service Details
Regimental Number3108080
Service Record Link to Service Record
Battalion2nd Battalion
ForceCanadian Expeditionary Force
BranchCanadian Garrison Regiment
Enlisted / ConscriptedConscripted
Place of EnlistmentHamilton, Ontario
Address at EnlistmentCopper Cliff, Ontario
Date of EnlistmentFebruary 25, 1918
Age at Enlistment21
Theatre of ServiceCanada
Prisoner of WarNo
Survived WarYes
Death Details
Date of DeathDecember 31, 1941
Age at Death45
Buried AtProspect Cemetery, Toronto

Brash, Frederick William

Private Frederick William Brash was called up for service in February 1918, at age 21. He served for a year in Canada.

Frederick was born on 14 March 1896 in Thessalon, District of Algoma, Ontario. His parents were Robert Alexander Brash, a lumberman, and his second wife Hannah Copeland. Robert had a son, Robert Earl, with his first wife Henrietta Gardiner. She died in 1885 and Robert married Hannah in 1887. He had at least four children with Hannah: John Harold (1891), Elsie Kathleen (1893), Frederick (1896) and Mary (born 1903, died 1905).

At the time of the 1901 census Frederick and his family were living in Rat Portage (now called Kenora), in northwestern Ontario, and Robert was a lumber foreman. When daughter Mary was born two years later they were in Sudbury and by 1911 the family had settled in Copper Cliff, just west of Sudbury. Frederick’s half-brother Robert Earl Brash stayed in the Kenora area. He enlisted early in the war and by July 1915 he was in France. He was wounded at the Battle of Mount Sorrel and invalided back to Canada in April 1917.

Conscription started in Canada in the summer of 1917 and single men age 20 to 34 were required to register by November. Frederick had his medical exam in Sudbury on 21 September and he was found fit for overseas service. The following day he was married in Sudbury to 20-year-old Veleta Leone Galbraith. Veleta was born in 1897 in Tweed, Ontario, the daughter of George Galbraith and Jenny Lockwood. She had at least one younger brother, Clarence, and a younger sister Bernice. Her father George had died in Sudbury in 1915.

Frederick was called up for service on 25 February 1918 in Hamilton. He was assigned to the 1st Depot Battalion, 2nd Central Ontario Regiment. He was living in Copper Cliff at the time with his trade listed as electrician. By mid-May he was in Quebec and a medical exam mentioned that in 1911 he had fractured his right tibia and he had a deformed right foot. He served in Canada with the 2nd Battalion, Canadian Garrison Regiment until the following spring. He was discharged on demobilization on 14 March 1919 in Toronto.

When the 1921 census was taken Fred and his wife were living in Sudbury and he was working as an electrician. The household included their daughter Leone, age 3, Veleta’s mother Jenny and Jenny’s second husband Waldo Crowe. By 1940 Fred and Veleta were living in Toronto and Leone was a nurse. Fred passed away at the Toronto General Hospital on 31 December 1941, at age 45. His funeral was held two days later and he’s buried in Prospect Cemetery.

By Becky Johnson


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