Source: December 1916 K.I.A.
Note: Accidentally killed when a cookhouse collapsed. See link for blog article.
Family Search: When Private James Rodger Aitken was born on 15 August 1897, in Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom, his father, Thomas Aitken, was 22 and his mother, Jemima Reid, was 25. He immigrated to Quebec City, Quebec, Canada in 1912 and lived in Toronto, Ontario, Canada in 1915. He registered for military service in 1915. In 1915, at the age of 18, his occupation is listed as clerk, mechanical draughtsman in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He died on 23 December 1916, in Aix-Noulette, Pas-de-Calais, France, at the age of 19, and was buried in Aix-Noulette, Pas-de-Calais, France.
Death has taken heavy toll of the Flett family in the past 12 months [as] the loved ones of three sisters have been taken from them by the Grim Reaper. It is just about a year ago that Mrs. James Meikle, daughter of Rev. Mr. Flett, 223 Oakmount road, lost three children by death, and in the same week, her sister, Mrs. Newall, lost one child. A few weeks about their brother, Pte. Fred. Flett, was killed in action; and now word comes that their widowed sister’s only son, Pte. James Aitken, has been accidentally killed.
Pte. James Aitken is a mechanical draughtsman buy trade. He enlisted last summer and went to France about 3 months ago with an ammunition column. He was only 18 years old, and an only child of Mrs. Jemima Aitken.
Source: Toronto Star – January 13, 1917 via CVWM.
Excerpt from Book of Remebrance.
History of the 18th Battalion CEF, "The Fighting Eighteenth" 