Letter #66 October 9, 1917 Lots of Portage boys killed or wounded just recently..

October 9th, 1917
Folkstone

CAMC Camp

Westenhaugen, Kent England

Dear Mother,

By Jove here it is two weeks and not one letter from you.  You know Mother there is something wrong with the mail delivery somewhere. Some of the boys have not heard from Canada for a couple of months.  Well, have you received my photos and say, are they not the limit.  I look like Von Hindenburg. Oh well I promised you one for a long while so now you have it.  The first time I said I would send you one well I had them taken but really they were worse than the last ones so you can hardly blame me for not sending the.  Now can you. I think I inherit the dislike for having my photo taken from you Mother. Because one time, I remember you having your picture taken in Dauphin and you would not even let Dad or I see them for a long while and then you eventually destroyed them.  Do you remember?

          Things in general are just as usual here.  I have a very good job and by all accounts I may be here for some time yet.  Drafts coming in and going out every day but I am regimentally employed and I may say that I like it as good as any job I have had yet and am getting on just fine.  Do you know Mother; I am considerably heavier now than I ever was in all my life so you see this place is agreeing with me.

          I was up to the flying corps the other night and one of the imperials was good enough to show me all around it.  He described all the different class of machines and the different purposes they were used for and all about them.  It sure was interesting.  I was wishing that Dad had of been there he would of enjoyed it.  Gee this place is slow but there is one good thing about it we cant get into to town only about once a week and we cant spend any money here so it enables us to live on army pay or at least try to.

          I suppose by this time VV has settled down and is a full-grown schoolteacher.  I sent her one or two letters but I can’t say if the address was correct or not.  However when I hear from her I will make it a point to write often it will tend to cheer her anyway.  Saw a bunch of the Portage boys the other night and by what they told me a lot of them have been killed and wounded just recently.

          My friends from Dauphin may be down here in a day or so for the weekend and if I can get a day or so pass I will have a fairly good time for a few days.  Gee Mother but they have been good to me you would think I was one of the family and when I was up there on pass they could not do enough for me.  The only thing I don’t like is that they call us Canadians “Gee Whizzers” Just imagine chippers calling us fellows “gee whizzers”

          How is Dad keeping I guess he is feeling his usual self or you would have mentioned it in your letter.  Well Mother I am going to get this off in the Post.  I will have to stop.  Tell Dad and VV I am still well and write often.  Be sure and tell me what you thought of your big son’s picture in the uniform.

Love Chas




(Unfortunately, very few photographs of Charley have survived and this particular portrait that has been a topic of conversation in many of his letters, has not surfaced. However, since Charley likens his mug to that of Paul von Hindenburg, here's a pic of Paul. I think Charley's being hard on himself.)

"Saw a bunch of the Portage boys the other night and by what they told me a lot of them have been killed and wounded just recently."  

Below are the names of 44 mostly very young men from Portage la Prairie who died in 1917. The dead and wounded Charley was hearing news of would have been friends and acquaintances.  In the summer of 1914 when Charley answered the call, he was renting a flat in Winnipeg, he played hockey and worked in a pharmacy. He was just beginning to find his way in the world, beyond home, beyond Portage. It must have been so for most of his contemporaries.  These 44 young men were Charley's age, in their 20's. Dead. Some were students, one was a student at law. They were clerks, labourers, farmers, millers, barbers, plumbers, teachers, tinsmiths and accountants.   These are just the losses from 1917, just the losses from one community in Manitoba.  

Their names. My hope for each of these young men is that someone who knows even a tidbit of their story remembers them and sometimes speaks their names.

Andrew Bremner / Labourer
George William Cochrane / Teacher
George Arthur Cockhead / Fireman
Percy Robert Cook / Farmer
James Alfred Corfield / Farmer
Walter Evan Cox-Smith / Farmer
Gordon Richardon Thomas Cumming / Carpenter
Francis Cuthbert Malcolm Cummings / Farmer 
Elmer Cecil Dalzell  /  Hardware Clerk
William Daum / Hardware Clerk
Alfred Dent / Farm Labourer
Thomas Birtwistle Douglas / Clerk
Charles Samuel Dyer / Barber
H. C. “Jack” Favel / Farmer
Allan Francis / Clerk
John Henry Froats  / Plumber
Arthur Taylor Fulford  / Telephone Lineman
Lorne Talmage Graham  / Farmer
James Frederick Harrison DCM  / Farmer
Edmund Huddlestone  / Farmer
Thomas Kaines  / Labourer
Russell George Kemp  / Farmer
John Frank Little  / Farmer
Alexander Mackie  /  Farmer
Colin Archibald MacLennan  / Farmer
Claude Elliott Matthews  / Farmer
William Lee Mawhinney  /  Barrister 
Albert Milton McCaig  /  Clerk
William Harvey McDonald / Labourer
Frederick Conroy Mills  /  Miller
James Moffat  /  Farmer
John Nicholson  / Farmer
Ira Stanley Nixon  / Tinsmith
Bruce Hutton Parkinson / Bank Clerk
David Peden  / Trackman
Aylwin Murray Pratt  /  Student at Law
Ernest Prout  /  Tinsmith
Henry Alexander Robertson / Broker
John Henry Sanders / Accountant
Charles Samuel Saunders  /  Farmer
Alfred Saxton  / Farmhand
Thomas Alfred Singer / Farmhand
Norman James Thomas MM  / Student
James Harrison Thompson  / Farmer

The names and occupations of these 44 young men comes from the excellent Manitoba Historical Society website Portage la Prairie War Memorial

And my response: "Down by the Riverside"  Sweet Honey and the Rock