Source: 18th Battalion Nominal Roll, April 1915.
SOLDIER OF FORTUNE RETURNS FROM FRONT
Pte. Gordon Wellington Wilder, a typical soldier of fortune, who saw service in several wars before the present one, and who fought through several engagements in Northern France with three different battalions, returned to Victoria yesteday, suffering from injuries while with a Canadian battalion.
When war broke out he was at Revelstoke and, being a reservist of the Royal Irish Fusiliers, he hastened back to the Old Country to rejoin his old regiment. He was engaged in breaking remounts. Wishing to see some of the fighting, he joined the 18th Battalion, C.E.F. and went to the front. He was with the maxim gun detachment on September 14, when he was wounded by a piece of shrapnel, which struck his right leg. He was riding on a gun limber at the time and when hit he was thrown to the ground and a wheel went over his body, breaking several ribs.
After arriving in Canada for Convalescent treatment, he spend five weeks at Quebec. He intends to report at the Equimalt Home next week, after spending Christmas with friends in New Westminster.
Pte. Wilder is a veteran of the Sudan War, the South African Wa, in which he was wounded at Ladysmith, and he was also a member of the force sent to Peking in 1900 to take part in the relief of the cosmopolitan garrison. From November, 1910 to May 1911, he was with Madero’s army in Mexico, while he later became attached to Pancho Villa’s forces, leaving them in time to be in British territory at the beginning of war.
Pte. Wilder was to have returned on Thursday afternoon, but missed the boat from the mainland.
Source: News clipping. The Daily Colonist. December 25, 1915. Page 7.
No city interment file, but funeral home record is clear he buried in American Legion Section of Hot Springs.
Gordon was divorced and lived in Golddust, NM.Claims he was Canadian WWI. No
WWI record found in US. Claimed a long time resident of NM, he died of suffocation in his residence and was found dead. The date of death is not known, the date on this memorial is the date they found him.
Did not find any information on a search at ancestry on this man. There are Wilders buried here but I could not prove any relationship.
He was release for having tuberculosis. Perhaps moved to New Mexico for the dry climate.
War Diary of the 18th Battalion CEF 