Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

To: mass55th

All true and sad. We (living Canadians) are not so far removed from it generationally that the sense of a desire to right a wrong remains. I can only speak for myself of course. Others may not give a damn and that is their prerogative. Another generation or two from now it will just be a story from the past.


39 posted on 05/10/2024 7:51:45 PM PDT by ExpatCanuck
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies ]


To: ExpatCanuck
Thank you for your comment. It's very much appreciated. I'm not sure if I've told you this previously, but my mother was born in Picton, Ontario and came to the U.S. as a little girl with her mother and her older brother. They settled in Rochester, NY.

Ancestors of hers had already settled in New York State long before she came here. They fought on both sides during the Revolutionary War. One of her ancestors left NY after serving in a county militia and married the daughter from a Loyalist family. I also had another DNA-connected 5th great-grandfather who came from Germany, and first settled in Dutchess County, N.Y. That's where he married. He moved his family to Pennsylvania. In Pennsylvania he joins Butler's Rangers, a Loyalist provincial military unit in the Revolutionary War, serving a little less than a year. The Rangers had its winter quarters on the West Bank of the Niagara River, and operated mostly in upstate New York and Pennsylvania. He is supposed to have been with the Rangers at Fort Stanwix, N.Y. (Rome, N.Y)., which ironically, is about 8-10 minutes from me. After the war ended he took his family, and settled in Ontario. He's buried in Sillsville (a village named after him), in Lennox and Addington County in Ontario.

My mother's brother served in the U.S. Army during WWII. He wasn't a citizen when he enlisted, and because they didn't have a date of entrance to the U.S., the Army drove him to Niagara Falls, and had him walk back from the Canadian side across the Peace Bridge. He was naturalized during his unit's stop at Fort Sam Houston in Texas, on his way to the west coast to ship overseas. I found his naturalization papers via Ancestry.com. Up until that time, the story had only been a family tale.

My great-uncle from Sophiasberg served in the 38th Battalion (Ottawa) C.E.F. during WWI. He died on Sept. 10, 1918 in France, of wounds he'd received on Sept. 2nd. He's buried in a British Military Cemetery in Wimille, France.

41 posted on 05/10/2024 9:09:01 PM PDT by mass55th (“Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway.” ― John Wayne)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 39 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson