Monthly Archives: January 2026

Family Day and the Names We Share

Family Day is a reminder to hold the people closest to us a little tighter. To take a day to spend with those you love. We want to take a moment to remember that years later we still remember our lost family from the St. Marys and area, the cost of war was carried by whole families, but some families suffered more loss, brothers who enlisted together, served in different theatres, and in too many cases, did not all come home.

As part of our ongoing work to memorialize the names connected to our local remembrance efforts, this article highlights families whose service stories are intertwined. For those names that are not alone on the cenotaph. Each name below links to an individual memorial page, where you can read their story in full and help keep their memory active in our community.

The Gardiner brothers

Four brothers answered the call in the First World War, each carrying the same family name into service in different ways. Two of them, Earl Edward and Edwin Lincoln, were killed in 1917, months apart. Another brother, William John, returned after being wounded and was later discharged as medically unfit. Robert Lindsay served overseas and later lived a long life at home, a reminder that service did not always end at the armistice, and that the war’s mark could follow a family for decades.

The Sandercock family

The Sandercock family story capture something especially rare: a father and sons whose service overlaps in a direct, documented way. Samuel Sandercock enlisted in 1916 and returned home due to asthma. His sons, Cecil J. Sandercock and William George Sandercock, both went overseas and were killed in 1917. William transferred into the 110th Battalion to serve alongside his father Samuel and his younger brother Cecil, making this a family story not only of shared sacrifice, but of deliberate closeness in service.

The Dewey brothers

The Dewey story bridges the Second World War across two very different kinds of service. Lester James Dewey served as an infantryman and was killed in April 1945. His brother, Kenneth Welland Dewey, served in the air as a Flight Sergeant and air gunner, and was killed in July 1944. Two brothers, two theatres, one family receiving unbearable news more than once.

The Steedsman brothers

The Steedsman story is a reminder that “killed in war” was not always a single moment, and not always a bullet. George Frederick Steedsman was wounded in August 1917 and died two days later. His brother William John James Steedsman was discharged medically unfit and later died of tuberculosis in 1920. Sometimes the cost comes in a single moment at the front. Sometimes it follows a family home.

The Evans brothers

Two brothers from the same family were lost in the First World War, one on land and one at sea. William Laurence Evans served as a medical officer and was killed near Guillemont on the Somme in August 1916. His brother John Clow Evans served with the Royal Naval Canadian Volunteer Reserve and was lost in December 1917 while serving aboard H.M. Trawler “Sapper Herbert Bennett.” Their family was pulled into separate branches of service, and still meet the same outcome.

The Near brothers

The Near brothers’ service was side by side as a stark timeline of loss. They travelled together into war. Frank Near was reported as missing and later presumed killed in action in June 1916. His brother William Near later suffered the same fate and was reported missing and presumed dead in August 1917. Both brothers have no known grave, their shared path makes the family connection impossible to miss.

The Gough brothers

Three brothers from one family appear in these memorial pages, with three very different outcomes. Samuel Gough was killed in April 1915. James Gough was killed in September 1916. Their brother Stephen Gough was wounded and returned to Canada in 1917. Taken together, the three stories show how a single household could be struck repeatedly, and how even the one who came home carried the war back with him.

The McKnight brothers

For the McKnight family, the war touched both the battlefield and the years that followed. Lloyd McKnight served with The Royal Canadian Regiment and died of wounds in Italy in December 1943. His brother Jack Franklin McKnight rose through the ranks, eventually becoming a Captain, and later died in 1947. One striking detail recorded on Jack’s page is that he wrote home from Italy in January 1944 about only recently learning that his brother Lloyd had been killed. That is how war often moved through families: late, incomplete, and devastating all the same.

The Sager brothers

In the Second World War, the Sager family lost two sons in separate campaigns. Roy Edgar Sager was reported missing on August 1, 1944 and later confirmed killed in action after his body was found. His older brother William Franklin Sager was killed in Germany on March 3, 1945. Their pages also keep the family link front and centre, showing two brothers moving through service, injury, postings, and ultimately the same final outcome.

A Family Day invitation

Family Day is often celebrated with meals, visits, and the kind of ordinary time we usually assume we will always have. These families did not get that luxury. Their names are part of the story of this community, and reading even one memorial page is a small act of respect that keeps that story present.

If you have a connection to any of these names, or if you have family stories you think should be included in our remembrance work, consider reaching out through the Legion and helping us continue building a record that future families can find, read, and remember.

The day the Perth Regiment met war face to face

January 17, 1944

Some dates live in a history book. Others live in a community.

By January 1944, the Perth Regiment had already learned that Italy was not going to give ground easily. The men had come ashore months earlier into a country carved up by rivers and ravines, where stone farmhouses could mean shelter or a trap depending on who reached them first. Ortona had fallen just before Christmas, but the fighting did not end. It shifted north into winter fields and broken roads, toward high ground overlooking the Arielli Valley, where the enemy had time, experience, and the advantage of position.

The Perths held the line, patrolled forward, and studied that ground with a kind of quiet dread. The approaches were covered. The positions were prepared. Even before orders came, the men knew something was coming.

On January 17 at 5:30 at, the regiment was ordered to move forward.

Before daylight, companies moved out into cold air and wet ground. Boots slipped in mud that wanted to keep them. Rifles were held tighter than usual. Somewhere ahead, German paratroopers were already awake and watching. When firing started, it was sudden and exact. Machine guns stitched the slopes. Mortars dropped into the advancing troops. Communication faltered. Sections lost sight of each other. And still, men pushed on.

It was in this fighting that Private Frederick Arthur Willmore was killed.

Those who remember him remember a young man from Perth whose name would later be carved in metal on the side of the townhall his wife would pass everyday awaiting news of his fate. Oral tradition within the regiment holds that Willmore was the first member of the Perth Regiment to be killed in action. Whether the paperwork confirms it or not, that belief has endured for decades, passed quietly from one generation to the next. The perths sustained 137 casualties in that first day of combat, including more than 40 deaths, in what Johnston called a “baptism by fire.” What is certain is that Willmore fell during the regiment’s first major assault, at the moment when training stopped being practice and became permanent cost.

In the same bitter ground, in the folds of the valley and the confusion of fire and movement, Private William Russell Stewart was also lost. His death is remembered as having occurred “in the Valley,” a phrase that says more than it seems. The Arielli Valley was not one clear place. It was slopes, gullies, exposed approaches, and danger from every direction. It was terrain that could swallow men and moments alike.

The fighting dragged on through the day. Platoons clung to whatever cover they could find. Counterattacks came. Orders were delayed, or never arrived. By nightfall the decision was made to pull back. The objectives could not be held. The wounded were gathered in darkness. The fallen were left behind, not from lack of care, but because war does not always allow the dignity people deserve.

Among those connected to this early period in the regiment’s history was also Corporal John Raymond McRobb, EM. It is said that he joined the Perths at the Fiumicino River, another name that carries weight for those who know the Italian campaign. Rivers marked progress and sacrifice in equal measure. To cross one often meant blood had already been spilled. He would not be a casualty of the day, he would climb out of the bloodied mud that day and go on to continue the fight further into Italy along with many more.

January 17 did not bring a breakthrough. The line did not move north. But it marked something just as important. It was the day the Perth Regiment truly entered the war as a fighting unit, not on paper, not in theory, but in loss. It was the first, and only, time during the entire war that they were unable to achieve their combat objective. But it did not end there. As Allied forces pushed through Italy toward France, the Perths played a pivotal role in other vital campaigns. All told, the Perth Regiment was awarded 10 primary battle honours and four secondary honours for their successful service. By the end of the war, 261 Perth soldiers had lost their lives fighting for home and country.

This year, as we commemorate the Royal Canadian Legion’s 100th anniversary, we want to highlight the names on the Cenotaph, banners, and memorials around St. Marys not as words on a wall, but as people: men and women connected to our shared history, who lived, served, and in some cases, died.

We invite you to read and share their stories, so their names remain living history.

Private Frederick Arthur Willmore
https://rcl236stmarys.ca/cenotaph/willmore-private-frederick-arthur/

Private William Russell Stewart (A-11256)
https://rcl236stmarys.ca/cenotaph/stewart-private-william-russell-a-11256/

Corporal John Raymond McRobb, EM
https://rcl236stmarys.ca/cenotaph/mcrobb-corporal-john-raymond/