Kenora Great War Project

 

Personal Details
Date of BirthMay 11, 1884
Place of BirthJoppa, Portobello
CountryScotland
Marital StatusMarried
Next of KinMabel Wilson, wife, 480 Young Street, Winnipeg, Manitoba
Trade / CallingClerk
ReligionPresbyterian
Service Details
Regimental Number288814
Service Record Link to Service Record
Battalion78th Battalion
ForceCanadian Expeditionary Force
BranchCanadian Infantry
Enlisted / ConscriptedEnlisted
Address at Enlistment480 Young Street, Winnipeg, Manitoba
Date of EnlistmentJune 26, 1916
Age at Enlistment32
Theatre of ServiceEurope
Prisoner of WarNo
Survived WarYes
Death Details
Date of DeathFebruary 5, 1964
Age at Death80
Buried AtChrist Church (Anglican) Cemetery, Stony Mountain, Manitoba

Wilson, John Samuel (1884-1964)

John Samuel Wilson was born on 11 May 1884 in his parent’s home at No 6 Rosslyn Terrace in Joppa, Portobello, Scotland. Today both Joppa and Portobello are suburbs of Edinburgh. John’s parents Robert Knox Wilson, commission agent, and Isabella Chisholm Amos had married on 26 April 1881 in Edinburgh. John had an older sister Margaret Ruth. It appears that Robert died before the 1891 census and that by 1901 Isabella was running a lodging house in Edinburgh Morningside.

An age appropriate John Wilson was found on the passenger list of the Sicilian that arrived in Montreal on 30 June 1906. Coming from Glasgow, he was a teacher on his way to Winnipeg, Manitoba. On 19 July 1913, in Kenora, Ontario, John married Mabel Dudwell. Born in 1891 in Wolverhampton, Staffordshire, England, Mabel was the daughter of Walter Dudwell and Jane Darlington. She had arrived in Canada aboard the Victorian in May of 1911, final destination given as Kenora.

With occupation given as clerk, his residence of Young Street in Winnipeg, and his wife Mabel as next of kin, John signed his attestation papers in Winnipeg on 26 June 1916. As a Private with the 221st Battalion he embarked from Halifax aboard the Ausonia on 18 April 1917. Once in England the battalion was absorbed by the 11th Reserve Battalion. In early June of 1917 John was struck off strength to the 78th Battalion overseas. First joining the 4th Entrenching Battalion on the 25th, he was transferred to the Canadian Corps Reinforcement Camp until mid October, then on to the 78th. In early January of 1918, John was granted a two week leave to Paris. Sustaining a gun shot wound to his left hand, he was admitted to the No 11 Canadian Field Ambulance on the 2nd of September. Invalided to England, he was admitted to the Horton County of London War Hospital in London on the 5th. In mid September he was transferred to the Woodcote Park Military Convalescent Hospital in Epsom, Surrey and was discharged on the 27th of November. Posted to the 18th Reserve Battalion and then to MD 10,  John returned to Canada aboard the Baltic, arriving in Halifax on 5 February 1919. During the war Mabel had returned to Kenora.

After the war John and Mabel were to make Stony Mountain, Manitoba their home where John was a teacher instructor at Stony Mountain Penitentiary from 1921 to 1949. The couple gave birth to four known children, sons Kenneth, John, and Robert, and daughter Marjorie. John was a member of the Canadian Legion and the Masonic Lodge No 134 of Stony Mountain.

John died on 5 February 1964 in Deer Lodge in Winnipeg. At the time of his death he was survived by his wife Mabel of Stony Mountain, sons Robert and Kenneth of Winnipeg, son John of Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, and daughter Marjorie. He was also survived by nine grandchildren and his sister Margaret in Scotland. Mabel died on 2 December 1974 at the Dr Evelyn Memorial Hospital in Stonewall, Manitoba. John and Mabel are interred in the Christ Church (Anglican) Cemetery in Stony Mountain.

by Judy Stockham

Grave marker photograph by Patricia Green, CanadaGenWeb’s Cemetery Project

 

 


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