Kenora Great War Project

 

Personal Details
Date of BirthDecember 15, 1891
Place of BirthMedicine Hat, Alberta
CountryCanada
Marital StatusSingle
Next of KinMrs. Matilda Emma McCloy (mother), Hamiota, Manitoba
Trade / CallingDruggist
ReligionPresbyterian
Service Details
Regimental Number258209
Service Record Link to Service Record
BattalionCanadian Machine Gun Corps Depot
ForceCanadian Expeditionary Force
BranchCanadian Machine Gun Corps
Enlisted / ConscriptedConscripted
Place of EnlistmentRegina, Saskatchewan
Address at EnlistmentMelville, Saskatchewan
Date of EnlistmentJanuary 26, 1918
Age at Enlistment26
Theatre of ServiceEurope
Prisoner of WarNo
Survived WarYes
Death Details
Date of DeathMay 16, 1986
Age at Death94
Buried AtLake of the Woods Cemetery, Kenora, Ontario
Plot37E-18-1

McCloy, Charles

Private Charles McCloy was born on 15 December 1891 in Medicine Hat, North-West Territories (now in Alberta). His parents, Alexander McCloy and Matilda Emma Jory, were both born in Ontario. They were married in Medicine Hat in 1891 and they had one other son, John, who was born in 1893 or 1894. By 1906 the family was living in the Marquette District in Manitoba, probably running a boarding house. For the census in 1906 the household included eleven boarders and two servants and Alexander’s brother, Marquis McCloy, was living next door with his family. When the 1911 census was taken Matilda and the two boys were still in the Marquette District and Charles was a druggist’s clerk. Alexander was living in Winnipeg at the time. He passed away in Minnedosa in 1912, at age 44, and he’s buried at Brookside Cemetery in Winnipeg.

Charles became a druggist/pharmacist and by 1916 he had moved to Melville, Saskatchewan, where he would make his home for the next forty years. Conscription started in Canada in 1917, as the war entered its fourth year. Charles reported that fall as required and had his medical exam in Melville on 17 October. He was called up for service in Regina on 26 January 1918 and assigned to the 1st Depot Battalion, Saskatchewan Regiment. His occupation was druggist and next of kin was his mother in Hamiota, Manitoba. He was sent overseas with the 3rd draft of his unit, embarking on 24 March on the SS Missanabie and arriving in England on 3 April. The following day he was assigned to the 15th Reserve Battalion and on 23 April he was transferred to the Canadian Machine Gun Corps Depot.

From mid-July to 2 October Charles was a patient in the Special Hospital at Etching Hill. A month after returning to duty he was sent to France and he arrived there in early November, a few days before the Armistice. He served for the next five months at the Canadian Corps Reinforcement Camp and General Base Depot. He returned to England in May 1919 and to Canada the following month, arriving in Halifax on 19 June on the SS Aquitania. He was discharged on demobilization on 26 June in Regina.

Charles returned to Melville and when the 1921 census was taken his mother was living there with him. He was married in Keewatin, Ontario on 15 April 1926 to Ellen Elizabeth Muriel Robinson. Muriel, a nurse, was born in Keewatin in 1898, the youngest of three daughters of James Robinson and Mary Cole. Charles and Muriel lived in Melville from 1926 until 1956, when they returned to northwestern Ontario and settled in Kenora. Charles retired in the early 1960s. Muriel died in California on 23 March 1968, at age 69, and her funeral was held in Kenora about three weeks later.

Charles passed away at Peace Arch Hospital in White Rock, British Columbia on 18 May 1986, at age 94. His cremains, along with Muriel’s, are buried in Lake of the Woods Cemetery in Kenora. He was survived by two nieces, Audrey Heaps and Norah Beaton. His brother John had died in 1960 and he’s buried in Didsbury Cemetery in Didsbury, Alberta.

By Becky Johnson

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