Kenora Great War Project

 

Personal Details
Date of BirthOctober 17, 1889
Place of BirthLatheron, Caithness
CountryScotland
Marital StatusSingle
Next of KinMrs Dorothy Stewart, mother, Lybster, Caithness, Scotland
ReligionPresbyterian
Service Details
Regimental NumberN/A
Battalion141st Battalion
ForceCanadian Expeditionary Force
BranchCanadian Infantry
Enlisted / ConscriptedEnlisted
Date of EnlistmentOctober 1, 1916
Age at Enlistment27
Theatre of ServiceEurope
Survived WarYes
Death Details
Date of DeathNovember 5, 1977
Age at Death88
Buried AtMount Pleasant Cemetery, Toronto, Ontario
PlotSection 45 Lot 1497

Stewart, Peter

Peter Stewart was born on 17 October 1889 in March Cottage in Forse, Latheron, Caithness, Scotland. He was the eldest child of farmer Donald Stewart and Dorothy Mackay who had married on 18 January 1889 in Inverness. His younger siblings included Mary (1891), Isabella Marjorie (Ida) (1893), William (1896) and Dorothy Evelyn (Dora) (1898). At age 16, in July 1906, Peter immigrated to Canada aboard the Athenia. His destination on the passenger list was given as Beaverton, Ontario. In 1911 Peter crossed into the United States, a farm labourer on his way to Chazy, New York. He had been living in Eglington, Ontario with his uncle Rev Mackey in Smith Falls listed as a relative in Canada on the border crossing record.

Peter enlisted with the 141st Battalion at Port Arthur, Ontario on 1 October 1916. Previous military service was with the 98th Regiment, having attended a course in Winnipeg to be promoted to Lieutenant that August. He was well known in Kenora, Ontario as he served as the local representative for the Department of Agriculture. With the rank of Lieutenant, Peter embarked from Halifax with the 141st Battalion on 29 April 1917 on the Olympic, next of kin given as his mother Dorothy back in Scotland. According to a Kenora Miner and News article dated 23 April 1919, Peter arrived back in Kenora that month from serving in France during the war. Further details of his service are unknown as his service record is missing from Library and Archives Canada.

At the time of the 1921 census Peter was living in Ottawa where he was working as an agriculturalist for the government. Although still in Ottawa, he married Muriel Grace Wilson on 28 September 1926 in Victoria, BC. Born on 17 January 1900 in Elkhorn, Manitoba, Muriel Grace was the daughter of Archibald Wilson and his first wife Eliza Charlotte St Clair Vidal. Eliza had passed away in 1908, with Archibald marrying Mary Elida Baldwin in 1912. Peter and Muriel Grace gave birth to three children, Joyce, Donald, and Anne.

Peter, who was known as Pat, died on 5 November 1977 in Riverdale Hospital in Toronto, Ontario. At the time of his death he was survived by his wife, adult children Joyce Kennedy of Ingersoll, Donald of Calgary, and Anne Graham of Willowdale and their families, his sister Dora of Wick, Scotland, and seven grandchildren. He was predeceased by his father Donald in 1906, mother Dorothy in 1956, sister Mary Mowat in 1943, all in Scotland, brother William, and sister Ida Crankshaw in 1975 in Montreal. Muriel Grace died on 24 December 1978 in the Sunnybrook Medical Centre in Toronto. His sister Dora later died in 1979 in Wick. Peter and Muriel Grace are interred in the Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Toronto.

Stewart-Peter-2 Stewart-Peter-3 Stewart-Peter-4 Stewart-Peter-5 Stewart-Peter-6 Stewart-Peter-7 Stewart-Peter-8 Stewart-Peter-9 Stewart-Peter-10 Stewart-Peter-11

Photographs of Peter and family as found on the Andrew Mowat family tree (primary source) and other public trees on ancestry.ca
Grave marker photo by Islington on findagrave.com


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