Kenora Great War Project

 

Personal Details
Date of BirthOctober 13, 1897
Place of BirthFlandreau, Moody County, South Dakota
CountryU.S.A.
Marital StatusSingle
Service Details
ForceU.S. Navy
BranchUS Navy
Survived WarYes
Death Details
Date of DeathJuly 1, 1981
Age at Death83

Beach, Aloysius Francis

Aloysius Francis Beach was born in Flandreau, Moody County, South Dakota on 13 October 1897. His parents were Leander Beach and Catherine Agnes Halligan. Leander was born in Wisconsin and Catherine in Minnesota. They were married in Flandreau in January 1897 and Aloysius was their first child. He was followed by Wilfred Louis (1899), Cecilia Mary (1901) and Francis Earl (1904). At the time of the 1900 U.S. census Leander was a day labourer and in 1910 he was a stone mason and plasterer.

The First World War started in August 1914 and the U.S. entered the war in April 1917. According to his obituary Aloysius served with the U.S. navy during the war but the details of his service aren’t known. The U.S. was actively involved in the war until 1919. When the next census was taken, in 1920, the Beach family was living in International Falls, Minnesota and all the boys including Aloysius were working as paper makers at the local paper mill.

Aloysius was married in International Falls on 12 September 1922. His wife, Nora Eunice Hanson, was born in 1899 in Bemidji, Minnesota, one of eleven children of Nels and Ingeborg Hanson. During the war she had worked at the paper mill in International Falls. Aloysius and Nora’s first child, Robert Aloysius, was born in International Falls in 1923. The following year they moved to Kenora, Ontario and Aloysius was employed at the new paper mill there, which began production in 1924.

Aloysius and Nora had four more children, all born in Kenora: Mary Ailene (1924), Donald Francis (1926), Lawrence Duane (1928) and Pat. Aloysius’ father died in 1937 and he’s buried in Forest Hill Cemetery in International Falls. His mother died in Minnesota in 1944. Aloysius was active with the militia in Kenora (in an artillery unit) and his son Robert served with the Royal Canadian Air Force during the Second World War. Robert went on to have a thirty year career in the Royal Canadian Navy and the Naval Air Service, retiring as a Commander in 1973.

After a long career at the Kenora pulp and paper mill, Aloysius retired in 1966. In his later years he lived on Redditt Road and in the 1970s he was married a second time, to Beatrice Byington. He passed away at the Lake of the Woods District Hospital on 1 July 1981, at age 83. He was survived by all of his children and his wife Beatrice. Mary Ailene (Mrs. James “Rip” Collins) died in California in 2017, Robert Aloysius passed away in Ottawa in 1994, Donald Francis died in 2008 and Lawrence Duane in 2000. Aloysius’ first wife Nora passed away in Kenora in 1992 and she’s buried in Lake of the Woods Cemetery.

By Becky Johnson

Photos courtesy of the Beach public family tree on ancestry.com. Obituary is from the Kenora Miner and News.


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