Kenora Great War Project

 

Personal Details
Date of BirthAugust 13, 1898
Place of BirthKenora, Ontario
CountryCanada
Marital StatusSingle
Next of KinJohn Cameron (father), Kenora, Ontario
Trade / CallingFarm labourer
ReligionPresbyterian
Service Details
Regimental NumberA39395, 187757 and 288464
Service Record Link to Service Record
BattalionCanadian Machine Gun Reserve Depot
ForceCanadian Expeditionary Force
BranchCanadian Infantry
Enlisted / ConscriptedEnlisted
Place of EnlistmentKenora, Ontario
Date of EnlistmentJune 4, 1915
Age at Enlistment16
Theatre of ServiceGreat Britain
Prisoner of WarNo
Survived WarYes
Death Details
Date of DeathJanuary 27, 1977
Age at Death78
Buried AtQueen's Park Cemetery, Calgary, Alberta
PlotMilitary section P, block 10, lot 56

Cameron, Edward Noble

Private Edward Noble Cameron enlisted three times: in June 1915, November 1915 and April 1916. He served for three years in Canada and England, returning home in January 1919.

Edward was the oldest son of John Cameron and Margaret Ann Hughes of Kenora, Ontario. John and Margaret were married in Rat Portage (later renamed Kenora) in 1896 and Edward was born on 13 August 1898. He had three brothers (John, Donald and Robert) and two sisters (Marjorie and Nancy), all younger than him. When the 1901 census was taken his father was a lumberyard foreman and in 1911 he was working as a carpenter.

The war started in August 1914 and Edward enlisted the following summer, signing up with the 52nd Battalion in Kenora on 4 June 1915. He was only 16 years old but his attestation had a birth date of 1896, making his apparent age 18. He left the army after only two months, around the time he turned 17, and re-enlisted in the fall, joining the 90th Battalion in Winnipeg on 3 November 1915. The unit had just been organized that month and it was recruited in the Winnipeg and Brandon areas. Edward was working as a farm labourer at the time and his birth date was again recorded as 1896. Over the winter the 90th Battalion boarded at Broadway barracks in Winnipeg and the men trained in three nearby churches. All three churches had gymnasiums, kitchen facilities and rooms for holding lectures and drills.

In the spring the 90th Battalion left for England but Edward was held back in Winnipeg and discharged on 20 April 1916. Just two days later he enlisted a third time, joining the 221st Battalion in Winnipeg on 22 April. The unit trained in Manitoba for a year and headed overseas in the spring of 1917. They embarked from Halifax on 18 April 1917 on the SS Ausonia, arriving in England 12 days later. Edward was assigned to the 11th Reserve Battalion when he first arrived in England, then transferred to the Canadian Machine Gun Reserve Depot on 17 May. He served with the depot for the next 17 months, until October 1918.

Between September and December 1917 Edward was in the hospital three times, suffering from seizures. In March 1918 he was ill with possible pleurisy and he spent a month in No. 14 Canadian General Hospital in Eastbourne. For most of May he was a patient at No. 10 General Hospital in Brighton. In October he was transferred to the Canadian Army Medical Corps Reserve and Training Depot and it was recommended that he be invalided back to Canada. Edward embarked from Liverpool on the SS Scotian on 3 January 1919, landing at St. John, New Brunswick 12 days later and getting two weeks landing leave. By then the war was over and he was officially discharged on demobilization on 15 March in Winnipeg.

Edward returned to Kenora after his service and married a local girl, Nellie Brinkman, on 1 December 1919. He was 21 years old at the time and working as a switchman for the railway. His wife was a year younger and like him she’d been born and raised in the Kenora area. They were living in Kenora when the 1921 census was taken but their marriage ended not long after that. Edward moved out west and in the 1930s he lived in Humboldt, Saskatchewan. He married his second wife, Anna, in 1940 in Regina.

Edward enlisted again during the Second World War, serving in Canada for about two years with the Regina Rifle Regiment and the Veterans Guard of Canada. He was discharged in Alberta in March 1943 and he lived in Calgary for the rest of his life. He was employed by the Commissionaires for several years and also worked as a policeman, fireman and crane operator. He married a third time in November 1961. He had at least three children, his daughter Mary (Mrs. Bernie Kennedy) and sons Ken and Ron.

Edward was admitted to Colonel Belcher Hospital in Calgary on 13 January 1977 and he died there two weeks later, on 27 January, at age 78. He’s buried in the military section of Queen’s Park Cemetery.

By Becky Johnson

52nd-1915-06-16 Cameron-Edward-Noble-90

Grave marker photo courtesy of City of Calgary Cemeteries.


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