Kenora Great War Project

 

Personal Details
Date of BirthDecember 15, 1893
Place of BirthWinston's Siding, Ontario
CountryCanada
Marital StatusSingle
Next of KinMrs M Anderson, mother, Rossport, Ontario
Trade / CallingClerk
ReligionLutheran
Service Details
Regimental Number2383394
Service Record Link to Service Record
Battalion27th Battalion
ForceCanadian Expeditionary Force
BranchCanadian Infantry
Enlisted / ConscriptedConscripted
Address at Enlistment231 Ross Street, Fort William, Ontario
Date of EnlistmentJanuary 3, 1918
Age at Enlistment23
Theatre of ServiceEurope
Prisoner of WarNo
Survived WarYes
Death Details
Date of DeathApril 6, 1961
Age at Death68
Buried AtLake of the Woods Cemetery, Kenora, Ontario
Plot12E-12-1

Anderson, George August LeRoy

George August (Gus) LeRoy Anderson was born on 15 December 1893. Although he gave his place of birth as Winston, Ontario in various documents and records, the name of it was actually Winston’s Siding, a very small community along the Canadian Pacific Railway between Schreiber and Rossport in northern Ontario. Both of his parents, John and Sarah Wilhelmina Anderson, were from Finland and had married on 1 October 1885 in Kuortane. They gave birth to son Oscar in 1886 and it appears that they immigrated in 1887. John worked as a section foreman for the railway, thus the need to settle along the tracks. Other children born in Winston’s Siding or nearby Rossport were John (1892), Gus, Alexander (1896), Arthur (1897-1902), Einer (1899), and Ester May (1902). The 1901 census found the family listed in Winston’s Siding (the only residents) and by the time of the 1911 census the family was living in Rossport where John was listed as hotelkeeper. Built in 1884 by the Canadian Pacific Railway along the tracks and overlooking Lake Superior, the Rossport Inn, with cabins later added, still stands today.

Living in Fort William, Ontario and working as a clerk, with the onset of conscription in the latter part of the war Gus was called up for service on 3 January 1918. Single, he gave his mother back in Rossport as next of kin. With a draft from the 1st Depot Battalion Manitoba Regiment Gus arrived in England aboard the Cretic on 4 March 1918. He was taken on strength with the 11th Reserve Battalion, preceding overseas to join the 27th Battalion in late August.

Joining the unit in the field on 31 August, just four days later on 4 September John sustained a through and through gunshot wound to the abdomen that fractured his ilium (pelvic bone) and perforated his intestine. First admitted to the No 3 Canadian Field Ambulance and then on to the No 8 Stationary Hospital in Wimereux, John, dangerously ill, was invalided to the London General Hospital on the 19th. In December he was transferred to the Princess Patricia Red Cross Hospital in Bexhill and then with the complication of influenza, on to the 13 Canadian General Hospital in Hastings in mid January. In mid March John was once again transferred, this time to the No 5 Canadian General Hospital in Liverpool.

Invalided to Canada, John left England on 14 April 1919 aboard the Araguaya. He was admitted to the Keefer Convalescent Home in Port Arthur where he stayed from 29 April to 1 August except for a ten day stay at McKellar Hospital in mid May when he had surgery to remove sequestrum (dead bone). In early September until early October John was a patient in the Isolation Hospital in Port Arthur, having contracted scarlet fever. He was discharged from service on 22 October 1919 in Winnipeg due to demobilization and being medically unfit for general service.

By the time of the 1921 census Gus was living in Nipigon, Ontario and working as a bookkeeper for the Hudson’s Bay Company. Transferring to Sioux Lookout, Ontario, on 26 November 1924, in Sioux Lookout, he married Sadie Louise (Loia) Gould. Born on 11 September 1903 in Treherne, Manitoba, Loia was the daughter of Arthur and Lydia Jane (née Hazelwood) Gould. Gus joined the Brewers Warehousing Company in Sioux Lookout, transferring to Kenora in 1948 as manager and retiring in 1959. The couple gave birth to one known child, daughter Janis. Gus was a member of Knox United Church (treasurer), the AOTS Club and the Kenora Rotary Club (secretary).

Gus died suddenly at the Kenora General Hospital on 6 April 1961. At the time of his death he was survived by his wife Loia, daughter Janis Whiteman of Keewatin, brothers Oscar of Rossport and Einer of Port Arthur, and sister Ester Birch of Schreiber. Loia moved to Thunder Bay in 1967 as her daughter Janis was living there and died on 30 September 2001. Gus and Loia are interred in the Lake of the Woods Cemetery in Kenora.

By Judy Stockham

  Anderson-August-4


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