Veterans' Week 2012: Relatives Who Served In WW I and WW II

I'm participating in the remembrance challenge for Veterans' Week as seen at Veterans' Affairs Canada website. This article is the second in a series I've prepared for my blog as a way of honouring the memory of my relatives and those who served Canada in times of war and peace.

Relatives Who Served in WW I and WW II

The following list features some of my relatives who served in World War I and World War II. Other, more distant relatives also served in both Wars. As far as I know, none of my ancestors (my parents, my grandparents and great-grandparents) served in either War. The only people in this list that I personally knew were my great-uncles Jean-Marie and Jean-Paul Beauvais and my father's cousin-in-law Joseph Saucier.

World War I

Name: Ovide Desgroseilliers (1884-1959)
Relationship: Ovide was my mother Jacqueline's great-uncle. He was the youngest son of Pierre and Flavie (Lepage) Desgroseilliers. Ovide married Anna Maurice in 1913 and lived in Sturgeon Falls, Ontario.
Rank / Branch: Sergeant / 163rd (Canadien-Français) Battalion.
Note: Ovide also served three years in the 97th Regiment (Algonquin Rifles) during the South African War.

Name: William Vanasse (1893-1955)
Relationship: William was my father's maternal uncle. He was a younger son of Olivier and Elisabeth (Vanasse) Vanasse.
Rank / Branch: Private / Canadian Forestry Corps.
Note: I wrote about some of William's war experience here.

Name: Joseph Vanasse (1898-1973)
Relationship: Joseph was my father's maternal uncle. He was a younger son of Olivier and Elisabeth (Vanasse) Vanasse.
Rank / Branch: Private / Canadian Forestry Corps.
Note: Joseph was awarded the British War Medal.

World War II

Names: Jean-Marie Beauvais (1921-2010) and Jean-Paul Beauvais (1921-2003)
Relationship: Jean-Marie and his twin brother Jean-Paul were my mother Jacqueline's maternal uncles. They were the youngest children of Joseph and Olivine (Hotte) Beauvais.
Rank / Branch: [unknown to me]
Note: I don't believe that either Jean-Marie or Jean-Paul went overseas during World War II. Jean-Marie was posted at CFB Chilliwack, British Columbia for a time.


Jean-Marie (left) and Jean-Paul Beauvais.


Name: Ernest Belair (1919-1944)
Relationship: Ernest was a second cousin of my father Maurice Belair. He was the son of Cléoplas and Anna (Favreau) Belair, who lived in Kenora, Ontario.
Rank / Branch: Private / Lake Superior Regiment (Motor), RCIC.
Note: Ernest was killed in action on 13 October 1944 in Belgium. He is buried in the Adegem Canadian War Cemetery in Maldegem, Belgium.

Name: Marvel Milks (1925-2012)
Relationship: Marvel was my father Maurice's first cousin. She was a daughter of Frank and Cora (Vanasse) Milks, of Ottawa, Ontario.
Rank / Branch: Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service (WRCNS).
Note: I don't believe that Marvel served overseas during World War II.


Maurice Belair with his cousins Lucille Potvin (left) and Marvel Milks (right).

Name: Joseph Saucier (1922-1993)
Relationship: Joe was the husband of Lucille (Lou) Potvin, a first cousin of my father Maurice. Joe was the son of Victor and Rosanna (Beaupré) Saucier.
Rank / Branch: Sergeant.
Note: Joe also served in the Korean War.

Copyright © 2012, Yvonne Demoskoff.

Veterans' Week 2012: Private William Vanasse, WWI Veteran




Yesterday, I wrote about what Canadians can do to remember Veterans' Week this year. Here is the first in a series of articles I'm posting on my blog as a way of remembering those who served Canada.

Private William Vanasse, WWI Veteran

My great-uncle William Vanasse was my paternal grandmother's elder brother. A younger son of Olivier and Elisabeth (Vanasse) Vanasse, he was born on 23 February 1893 in Chichester, Pontiac County, Quebec.

William Vanasse with his brother Joseph and sister Cecilia.

I know few details about my Dad's Uncle Willie: he lived on his father's farm on Allumettes Island, was a soldier in World War I, and suffered from shell-shock. Wanting to know more about him and his war experience, I decided to look for William's recruit papers last year at Library and Archives Canada (LAC) website. His attestation papers provided minimal information about him when he enlisted in June 1917. For example, he was 24 years old, was 5’8” tall, had brown eyes and black hair, was unmarried, worked as a bushman (roller and trailcutter), and had never previously served in a military force. (Although his younger brother Joseph also served in WWI, it seems that neither their brothers George nor David did.)

Now that I knew some basic details, I ordered William’s World War I complete service file from LAC and received it by email a few weeks later as a 39-page PDF document. As I examined William’s regimental paperwork, I learned that he was sent overseas in August 1917, just 43 days after he enlisted, sailing from Halifax, Nova Scotia on the S.S. Grampian.

S.S. "Grampian" of the Allan Line.

(Photo source: William James Topley / Library and Archives Canada / PA-010252. Online MIKAN no. 3398145.)

He disembarked in Liverpool, England after a 13 day voyage and reported to his base at Sunningdale, near Windsor. William spent the next ten months occupied with railway construction and forestry duties with the Canadian Forestry Corps. (The CFC was created in 1916, because the British government needed wood in the early years of the War. It was easier to recruit skilled Canadian lumberjacks to work in the forests of England, Scotland, and France than to import lumber from Canada.) The following year, in June 1918, William was transferred to France where he spent the next 6½ months, before returning to England in January 1919. He was demobilised a few weeks later, arriving back in Canada that March.

Unfortunately, I didn’t find any mention of battle fatigue or shell shock in William’s medical file, although influenza and “flat feet” are reported. Despite the lack of documentary evidence for shell shock, personal family knowledge attests that William was a casualty of this serious disorder.

William never married. He died, aged 62, at the Veterans’ hospital in London, Ontario on 13 May 1955 after a prolonged illness. His obituary stated that “he served overseas with both the infantry and construction battalions” in World War I. William’s funeral was held in Ottawa and he is buried there in Notre-Dame Cemetery.

Copyright © 2012, Yvonne Demoskoff.