Source: Bruce Remembers
Family Search: When Private Gordon Jackson Kerr Daniel was born on 23 January 1887, in Greenock Township, Bruce, Ontario, Canada, his father, James Daniel, was 40 and his mother, Margaret Kerr, was 37. He married Catharine Susan Campbell on 7 June 1921, in Port Elgin, Saugeen Shores, Bruce, Ontario, Canada. He lived in Bruce, Ontario, Canada for about 10 years and Port Elgin, Saugeen Shores, Bruce, Ontario, Canada in 1924. He registered for military service in 1914. He died on 1 June 1935, in Walkerton, Bruce, Ontario, Canada, at the age of 48, and was buried in Sanctuary Park Cemetery, Saugeen Shores, Bruce, Ontario, Canada.
Nominal Roll has his last name as “Daniels”.
From the Paisley Royal Canadian Legion Branch 295 Facebook Group.
Gordon Jackson Kerr Daniel
The Canadian Over-Seas Expeditionary Force obtained a fountain of information from each enlisted person sent to Europe in October 1914. The Attestation Paper records everything from place of birth to next of kin; from height and girth to a doctor’s signed certificate; from the form of oath of allegiance to the King (not to Canada) to an acknowledgement by the soldier that he is bound to his oath until six months after the War ends.
The grandchildren of Gordon Daniel provided the key information which facilitated a search of the government archives. As confirmed by his family, Gordon was born in Greenock Township, Bruce County on January 23, 1887, and lists his dad, James Daniels of Paisley, as next of kin.
You will note above that there is no “s” on Daniel above and there is one on James. The Canadian Army has both listed with an “s”; however, the grandchildren clarified that there is no plural on the name. Gordon would not have reviewed the written document as it was read back to him by the judge who was taking the oath, so he didn’t have an opportunity to correct the mistake of the officer who wrote the information. The photo of Gordon’s headstone in Sanctuary Park Cemetery in Port Elgin confirms his death on June 1, 1935, at age 48 with his surname as Daniel.
At the time he volunteered, Gordon belonged to the Active Militia, was not married, and was a labourer. He joined at Walkerton on October 28th, 1914, knowing he would be sailing to Europe. His ship, the SS Grampian, named after the high-land mountains, south of Inverness in Scotland, sailed from Halifax on April 18, 1915. He was part of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, 18th London Battalion, which was authorized on November 7, 1914, and recruited out of Western Ontario. He landed in France on September 15, 1915, to join the 4th Infantry Brigade, 2nd Canadian Division in France and Flanders where, as he described to his family, he was in “the thick of many engagements” for two years. One of Gordon’s jobs was to take horses and wagon to the ‘front’ and transport wounded soldiers and those who made the ultimate sacrifice back to the Allied lines.
Although Gordon wanted to remain in active service, he returned to Canada on October 18, 1917, after two years of brutal conditions on the Western Front. He spent three months in the Guelph Hospital on his return, his health having deteriorated through the privations of trench life. No one says it in official records, but he would have lived under threat of death every minute he was out in No Man’s Land collecting the wounded and dead. Death was also a visitor in the trenches, rats, water, mud, wet clothing, poor food, freezing cold in winter, blazing heat in summer, masses of bugs. He was honourably discharged in January 1918.
For the next couple of years, he picked up his life in Paisley. He met Catherine Susan Campbell, a person his grandchildren describe as “wonderful, patient and kind” and they married on June 8, 1921. They went on to raise four children in Paisley. Their grandchildren have actively supported the Paisley Royal Canadian Legion Branch 295 Honour our Veterans Memorial Banner program as an opportunity to say “Thanks” not only to their Grandfather but to all Veterans for their service.
Per Paisely Advocate. Source: Jim Kelly via email.
History of the 18th Battalion CEF, "The Fighting Eighteenth" 