Ellis, Driver Frank Johnston

Service highlights

  • Born: 6 December 1890 in St. Marys, Ontario.
  • Service number: 201954
  • Enlist date: November 15, 1915
  • Enlisted in Toronto with the 95th Battalion, later serving in France with the 3rd Battalion and then as a driver with formation and artillery support units.
  • Served through major Canadian Corps actions including the Somme period, Vimy Ridge, Hill 70, and Passchendaele, then returned to the front for the Hundred Days advance in 1918.
  • Died 7 October 1918 and is buried at Bourlon Wood Cemetery, France (Grave II. F. 3).

A Life and Service Remembered

Before the war took him overseas, Frank Johnston Ellis was part of the civic fabric of St. Marys. He was a member in good standing of the St. Marys Independent Order of Odd Fellows, Lodge 36, a fraternal organization that mattered in small towns because it was both social and practical.

In the years before modern public supports were common, lodges like the IOOF offered a kind of community safety net. Members met regularly, paid dues, and backed one another through sickness, hardship, and loss. The Odd Fellows also organized charitable work, and in some places supported homes and care for people who had few other options. The lodge’s presence in St. Marys was not just a membership list. The Odd Fellows built many landmarks, the most prominent standing today was built before Frank was born on Water Street, the St. Marys Opera House, a landmark limestone building constructed in 1879 to 1880. It still stands as a protected heritage place in the heart of town.

He then made his way to Toronto, building an ordinary working life before the war, working as a grocer. When he enlisted in November 1915 it is easy to picture how that sense of obligation and mutual support fit Frank’s reputation at home, and how it followed him into the Army.

He sailed overseas in the spring of 1916 on the SS Olympic and, by September, was in France with the 3rd Battalion, arriving in time for the grinding months that defined the Somme front. He came through that season when so many did not, and the war moved him into work that rarely makes headlines but kept everything moving: the supply and ammunition lifelines behind the line.

In 1917 he served as a driver with the 3rd Divisional Train and later with artillery formations, supporting the Canadian Corps through the hard fighting around Vimy and the Lens sector, and then into the mud and misery of Passchendaele. It is the kind of service that meant long hours, heavy loads, and constant danger, horses and wagons under shellfire, and the quiet discipline of showing up again the next day.

In July 1918 he was hospitalized with trench fever and only returned to duty in September, just as the Canadian Corps began its final, relentless advance. That autumn push drove through the Drocourt-Quéant Line and across the Canal du Nord toward Cambrai, with Bourlon Wood and the roads around it becoming bitterly contested ground. On 7 October 1918, while his team was unloading ammunition from the wagons under heavy shelling, a shell burst nearby and killed him.

Frank’s grave is in Bourlon Wood Cemetery in France. His name also lives on in Canada’s Books of Remembrance and on the cenotaph in the heart of his home town of St. Marys. His Lodge brothers Erected a memorial in the St. Marys Cemetery to remember the lodge brothers that had died overseas. Frank Ellis was remembered along side his brothers William Near and Alexander Freeman.

Major battles and operations

  • The Somme: 1 July to 18 November 1916
  • Hill 70, Lens sector: 15 August 1917 (with actions continuing later in August)
  • Passchendaele: 26 October 1917 to mid-November 1917
  • Arras and Canal du Nord, 1918: 26 August 1918 to 9 October 1918 (Drocourt-Quéant Line, Canal du Nord, Bourlon Wood, advance to Cambrai)

Learn More

https://www.veterans.gc.ca/en/node/617260
https://lanarkveterans.weebly.com/frank-ellis.html
https://rca-arc.org/lwf-e/
https://canadiangreatwarproject.com/person.php?pid=38577
https://www.warmuseum.ca/firstworldwar/history/battles-and-fighting/land-battles/the-somme/
https://www.warmuseum.ca/firstworldwar/history/battles-and-fighting/land-battles/hill-70/
https://www.warmuseum.ca/firstworldwar/history/battles-and-fighting/land-battles/passchendaele/
https://www.warmuseum.ca/firstworldwar/history/battles-and-fighting/land-battles/arras-and-canal-du-nord-1918/
https://www.townofstmarys.com/media/mynpu0rp/municipal-register-of-heritage-designated-properties-may-2025-version.pdf?utm_source=chatgpt.com
The Fallen by Richard Holt, 201954 Driver F.J. Ellis