Wednesday, February 12th, 2025

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner][vc_raw_html]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[/vc_raw_html][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_column_text]As a child May Johnston received a piece of advice from her father.

If she tired of the five-mile walk between the family farm in Ruskview and school in Honeywood, he said, she should hum a march and she would find she would get there all the faster.

Her father, Walter Winchester, learned that lesson the hard way.

He had marched from Camp Borden to Hamilton in fall of 1916 with the 164th Battalion.

One of eight children – four boys and four girls, two of whom died as infants – Johnston said her father didn’t tell her many stories of the First World War.

“He never told the girls hardly anything,” she said from the kitchen table in her Creemore home. “He told the boys the stories.”

But she has those stories now, carefully archived in the family’s history books; her father’s story compiled by her son John Johnston.

Winchester came to Canada as a young man to work as a farmhand in Mulmur. It was in the era of the Barnardo boys; when young people were sent from England to work in Canada.

According to his attestation papers, Winchester was born in 1892 in Surrey, England. His father died before he was born and his mother remarried. (When applying for his pension, Winshester had to prove his age so his mother sent someone to check the gravestone of his father and it turns out he was actually four years older.)

As the story goes, Winchester’s employer didn’t pick him up at the train station in Shelburne on the stormy winter night of his arrival so he accepted an invitation to go home John Broderick to his farm north of Honeywood where he continued to work until he enlisted in the 164th Battalion in January 1916.

According to records, soldiers in the 164th Battalion, made up of men from Halton and Dufferin counties, began their long march from Borden on Oct. 16, 1916. They marched through towns in the two counties, some days in torrential rain, in an effort to recruit men into their ranks. They made it to Shelburne the first day and on subsequent days stopped in Grand Valley, Orangeville, Milton, Oakville and Burlington before reaching Hamilton on Nov. 2. The soldiers were fed lunch from field kitchens set up along the way and hot dinners were prepared and served at churches and halls.

The battalion set sail out of Halifax the following spring, arriving in Liverpool on April 23, 1917, en route to France.

“In March 1918 when the German armies broke through the British and French lines at Albert, the Canadian Corps were to hold the line beyond Vimy Ridge. Our Battalion was located at Mericourt and for the boys of the 164th Battalion this was the first experience under fire, in trenches sometimes filled with water and mud and other debris, not saying anything about the rats and lice that invaded every dugout and trench. This was truly the war at its worst.” – as told by battalion member and Orangeville merchant Harry Glover in Shelburne’s Free Press and Economist in 1966.

Winchester, while assigned to the 102nd Canadian Battalion, was wounded by gunfire near Mericourt on Nov. 2, 1918, just days before the armistice.

In the 1930s, recalls May’s son Ron Johnston, his grandfather had some discomfort in his shoulder and it turned out to be the bullet, which was removed. The bullet, now in Ron’s possession, is from a German machine gun. Winchester, who was in the signal corps, had been attempting to repair a communications wire along a trench. He reached up toward the break in the wire and was hit with machine gun fire. He crawled back through the town and a hand came out of the cellar and pulled him into a house where a local woman gave him some tea. He was taken to the aid station and was then sent farther back from the front line and eventually to hospital in England.

Winchester believed that one bullet had been removed back then but Ron said it is possible that it was left because he was in such bad shape, they didn’t know if he would make it.

When he was released, Winchester returned to Mulmur and secured farmland through the Veterans Land Act.

Winchester married Lucy Tupling in 1919 and together they continued farming in the Ruskview area before moving into Creemore in 1961. Winchester died in 1982, at the age of 93. At last count, said May, her father has 91 direct descendants.

Remembrance Day services

Creemore

The Creemore Legion is holding a Remembrance Day service beginning at the cenotaph at 10 a.m. From there, the military will march to the Legion. The service begins at 10:45 a.m.

The Creemore Legion is located at 27 Wellington St. W.

New Lowell

The New Lowell Legion’s Remembrance Day event begins with a parade from the fire hall at 10:30 a.m. to the Legion cenotaph for a service at 11 a.m. There will be a reception at the Legion afterwards.

The New Lowell Legion is located at 5357 County Road 9.

Mansfield

The Mansfield Women’s Institute is hosting a Remembrance Day service at the cenotaph, located at the ballpark in Mansfield, beginning at 10:30 a.m.

Guest speaker John Thomson will share stories and information about his uncle who was local to Mansfield and a First World War honour roll veteran.

Following the service, people are welcome at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church Mansfield for coffee and snacks with the guest speaker.

The cenotaph is located at 937016 Airport Road.

Singhampton

A service at the Singhampton Cenotaph begin at 10:30 a.m. The service will be led by the Rev. Ray Dobson and the roll will be read by Roger Zeggil.

     

  

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