By Randy Evans and Gary Scrhrumm for The Sarnia Journal Extraordinary lives are always worth telling. Emma Matilda Wood was born in 1883 to Elgin and Mary Anne Wood (nee Rowe) of Sarnia, Ontario, Canada. On the strength of the families’ Front St. fruit and vegetable business Miss Wood and [...]
Phil Egan for The Sarnia Journal Roz Green is a curious lady, and Sarnians can be grateful for that curiosity. The musician was strolling in her central Toronto neighbourhood recently when something caught her eye. Two large, wooden panels were laying curbside, presumably awaiting the trash collector. Green thought her [...]
By Randy Evans On January 4, 1916, my maternal Grandfather Percy Bodaly enlisted to serve with the Canadian Expeditionary Forces in World War One. He was 19 years old at the time. Initially as a Private but later a Corporal, his entire wartime career would be spent in the medical [...]
By Steven McKenna (2015) The year was 1889 when Patrick Grandcourt Kerwin was born in Sarnia, Ontario in what was a young Canadian nation where residents were considered British subjects. Queen Victoria was the monarch and the Prime Minister of the day was Sir John A. Macdonald, leader of the [...]
by Phil Egan (2015) He left a trail of chaos and human misery in his wake, yet he was a “charming rogue” who managed to fool almost everyone he ever met. Norman J. “Red” Ryan and his companions swathed a trail of criminal activities from Montreal to Minneapolis, but it [...]
by Randy Evans (2014) August 5th, 2014 marks the centenary of Canada’s entry into the First World War. The Declaration of War upon Germany began a cross-country enlistment and the eventual conscription of some 600,000 individuals who would make up the Canadian Expeditionary Force. With a population of just 10,000 [...]
by Randy Evans, as reported in the Sarnia Canadian Observer from 1914-18 Mail has always been considered, respected and treated by the parties thereto as private and confidential. In peacetime it would be inconceivable that even newsworthy correspondence between parties would be forwarded to the local press for sharing on [...]
by Randy Evans for The Sarnia Journal (2014) This year Sarnia has joined a national Remembrance to respect the 100th anniversary of Canada’s entry into the Great War. The community had good reason to reflect. Out of a population just then reaching 10,000 a total of 1,090 men and women [...]
by Phil Egan (2015) It sits quietly on the lawn in front of the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 62 on Front Street. Its massive gun is silent, but the battle tank “Calamity” still carries an unmistakeable air of deadly menace. As you might expect, there is a story behind it. [...]
by Dan McCaffery for the Sarnia Observer (2003) Sarnia-Lambton’s greatest hero of the Great War may well have been George Hunter Stirrett. Stirrett, who was born in Forest, raised in Petrolia and lived his adult life in Sarnia, won the Military Cross (MC) and the Distinguished Conduct Medal (DCM) for [...]
