The Father I Did Not Know
I was talking to my wife yesterday about the time I lived in England. But I could not recall why we moved there. I knew that my father was born in England but I did not know where. Nor, for that matter, did I know when.
My father died in 1973 just a few weeks after my 16th birthday.
My father had served in the first world war. And the Canadian government maintains a list of records on soldiers of the first world war. I found my father’s information on that database.
He was born on March 27, 1893 in Manchester, England to Elizabeth Cleaver. I never knew his date of birth nor his place of birth until today almost 50 years after my own birth. He was 21 years of age when he entered the war. I cannot imagine what that experience must have been like.
Here is the record of his attestation.
Thanks to this blog for helping me answer a few questions about the father I did not know.
wow. This is amazing. It’s haunting to imagine the day he held that pen and signed his name…not having any idea of what lay ahead – and here you are writing about him 90 years later.
Haunting perfectly describes my experience of finding this document in the government archives. It is amazing.