Source: Per news clipping post by David Archer at 18th Battalion Facebook Page (not group).
Family Search: When Private Bernard Wills Sr. was born in 1899, in Kings Heath, Worcestershire, England, United Kingdom, his father, William Henry Wills, was 38 and his mother, Ann Jane Barrisdale, was 34. He married Elsie Gladys Lilian Oates on 24 December 1919, in York Township, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. They were the parents of at least 3 sons and 2 daughters. He lived in Kings Norton, Worcestershire, England, United Kingdom in 1901 and Toronto, York, Ontario, Canada in 1931. He died on 10 September 1982, in Scarborough, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, at the age of 83, and was buried in Prospect Cemetery, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Mon, Sep 13, 1982 ·Page 6.
‘Barney’ Wills — neighborhood institution
By Nicolaas Van Rijn Toronto Star
Obituary
A funeral service for Bernard Wills — best known as Barney to his “fans” — who died in Scarborough General Hospital Friday following a brief illness, will be held tomorrow in the Giffen-Mack Chapel.
Wills, born in Toronto in 1898, quit school while in Grade 8 at Garnet Avenue Public School to join the army at the outbreak of World War I. The youngest in a family of 11 children, Wills was 16 at the time and, recalls a daughter, “came up with an adroit little white lie” to get past army recruiters, who wouldn’t accept volunteers under the age of 18.
But as Wills was dodging bullets and advancing the poison gas on the scarred battlefields of Europe, tragedy struck his family in Toronto toward the end of the war.
When The Great Flu Epidemic struck toward the end of 1918, he lost a sister and two brothers, victims of influenza, within the space of five days.
At the end of the war, he returned home and, for several years, worked at various jobs while settling down. In 1919 he married Elsie Oates, who predeceased him in 1967, and survivors include daughters and sons.
In 1931, Wills moved his family to Scarborough, where he was to spend the rest of his life, and with horse and wagon, Wills covered a large part of Scarborough, selling directly to housewives as he moved his “rolling store” down their streets.
But, when World War II began in 1939, Wills again turned up to re-enlist, joining the Veterans’ Guard — Canadian soldiers involved with wartime duty in this country.
Wills wanted desperately to go overseas, but, past the age of 40, he wasn’t able to fool recruiters with his “white lie” of 1914. He served in Espanola — near Sudbury — as a guard in a prisoner-of-war camp.
Returning to Metro at the end of the war, he opened up another business, Wills’ Repair Shop, at the corner of Pape Ave. and Gowan Ave., and ran the thriving little shoe repair shop until his ‘retirement’ in 1963 at the age of 65.
He was a neighborhood institution and his shop soon became a local landmark for area youngsters, who knew they could drop in anytime for a free skate-sharpening job.
Following his formal retirement, he began another job, that of school crossing guard on Warden Ave. at Mack Ave. and for the next 12 years watched an entire generation of children pass through Public Warden Avenue School.
Tomorrow’s funeral service in the Giffen-Mack Chapel, 2570 Danforth Ave. (at the Main St. subway station), will begin at 2 p.m. Interment will follow in Prospect Cemetery.
Bernard Wills: Area kids knew they could drop in for a free skate-sharpening job.
History of the 18th Battalion CEF, "The Fighting Eighteenth" 