In Thetford Mines, on 2 November 1914, my grandfather, then nineteen-year-old Antonio Roy, answered the questions on the Attestation Paper and signed up to serve in the Canadian Over-Seas Expeditionary Force.
Antonio Roy, all suited up in the 1940s. He wanted to get back into the fight in WWII. His legs wouldn’t let him.
Unmarried, a chauffeur by trade, he made it relatively unscathed through to the end in 1918. I say relatively because I don’t see how anyone lived from 1914 through 1918 untouched.
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The relationships he forged on the battlefield impacted the family later. He was rumored to have saved the life of the son of one of the Thetford Mines asbestos mine bosses, who was English, by carrying him to safety on his back. There had to be some Peaky Blinders–like action there somewhere.
The veterans of the time came home and faced unemployment, followed by the Spanish Flu. Yet, they survived and thrived, and here we are, because of his attestation in November 1914.
Heroes vaccinate. Antonio was willing. His love of country and fellow man overcame any irrational fears of being vaxxed.
If he wasn’t bilingual already, Antonio surely came back knowing English, an essential survival tool in a Quebec run by English and American interests. And there was bootlegging, eventually, and trade between Canada and the United States picked up.
And if that didn’t do it, his stint in the early twenties working in the Nashua, New Hampshire mills solidified his bilingual bona fides. But enough history.
Antonio Roy’s World War I record, partially redacted and optimized for web viewing. He signed up 2 November 1914. Antonio served until January 1919, likely at the start of the spread of the Spanish Flu.
The quality of the scan is exceptional. If someone in your family served during World War One, the Canadian Government has an excellent online resource with all of its personnel records. The file below is a little over 5MB, redacted from a 32MB file.
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