Kenora Great War Project

 

Personal Details
Date of BirthNovember 27, 1886
Place of BirthRat Portage (Kenora), Ontario
CountryCanada
Marital StatusSingle
Next of KinKate W Emerson, mother, 136 High Street East, Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan
Trade / CallingClerk
ReligionChurch of England
Service Details
Regimental Number1009005
Service Record Link to Service Record
Battalion229th Battalion
ForceCanadian Expeditionary Force
BranchCanadian Infantry
Enlisted / ConscriptedEnlisted
Address at Enlistment136 High Street East, Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan
Date of EnlistmentDecember 3, 1915
Age at Enlistment29
Theatre of ServiceCanada
Prisoner of WarNo
Survived WarYes
Death Details
Date of DeathAugust 28, 1938
Age at Death51
Buried AtMoose Jaw City Cemetery, Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan
PlotMJ Old Block 33-Lot 1-Grave 6

Emerson, Robert Stewart

Robert Stewart Emerson was born on 27 November 1886 in Rat Portage (later renamed Kenora), Ontario. His parents Robert Wellington Emerson and Catherine (Kate) Wilson Martin married on 3 March 1882 in the RM of St Andrews, Manitoba. Kate’s family had been farming just outside of Rat Portage and the newlyweds were to make Rat Portage their home where Robert found work as a locomotive engineer with the Canadian Pacific Railway. Children born in Rat Portage were Thomas James (1883), William Lee (1884), Robert, George Gordon (1888), Lillian Gertrude (1890), and John Wesley (1892). By the time of the birth of their next child Clarence in 1894 the family had moved to Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. Sadly Robert Sr was killed in a head-on train collision near Indian Head in September of 1905.

With occupation given as clerk and his mother Kate in Moose Jaw as next of kin, Robert signed his first set of attestation papers in Moose Jaw on 3 December 1915. He began training with the 229th Battalion as a Sergeant but was transferred to the Special Services Company. With defective vision (blind in one eye) and valvular heart disease (heart murmur), he was discharged on 4 July 1917 due to irregular enlistment/medically unfit. Robert signed his second set of attestation papers, with the 16th Light Horse Regiment, on 27 August 1918 in Regina. He was transferred to the 12th Battalion Canadian Garrison Regiment and would serve in Regina as a Staff Sergeant with the Canadian Army Pay Corps until discharged on 21 June 1920.

Robert returned to Moose Jaw and worked as maintenance of way clerk in the office of the trainmaster of the Canadian Pacific Railway. He lived with his brother Clarence on First Avenue Northwest in Moose Jaw. Robert and Clarence had travelled to Port Arthur to visit relatives and on the way home were involved in a head-on collision near Indian Head in the early morning hours of 28 August 1938. Just a couple of miles away from where their father had died, both Robert and Clarence died in the accident. Along with their mother (1932), father, and brother John (1912), they are interred in the Moose Jaw City Cemetery. Brothers Thomas (1952) and William (1957) are also interred in the cemetery.

Robert’s brothers George and Clarence also served during the war.

by Judy Stockham

Emerson-Robert-Stewart-2 Emerson-Robert-Stewart-3 Emerson-Robert-Stewart-4

Moose Jaw Times Herald articles courtesy of Marge Cleave.
Grave marker photographs courtesy of the Moose Jaw Branch of the Saskatchewan Genealogical Society.


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