Here he participated in the annual conference of the California State Command of the Canadian Legion of the British Empire Service League in 1937.Īt the outbreak of the Second World War he returned to Canada to enlist, this time with the 2nd Battalion, Irish Fusiliers of Canada, on 4 September 1940. In 1930 he is living in Los Angeles with his wife, Nellie, and a 2-year-old son, working as a building contractor. He discharged the next day.īy 1921, Robert was back in Port Hood working as a miner but returned to the United States later that year. He was sent back to the United Kingdom in January 1919 for demobilization and returned to Canada at Halifax on 4 April 1919 on the transport Northland. By June he was serving at Brigade headquarters and did not return to his regiment until after the armistice. He arrived there in March 1918 and was assigned to the 25th Canadian Infantry Battalion (Nova Scotia Rifles). Shortly after this appointment was confirmed in January 1918 he elected to revert to Private to join his unit in France. He spent much of the war on depot duties in Whitby, United Kingdom, being awarded an unpaid appointment as Acting Lance Corporal in November 1916. He attested for the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) in Halifax on 28 February 1916, claiming his date of birth as “May 1898”, into the 185th Canadian Infantry Battalion (Cape Breton Highlanders) and left Canada aboard SS Olympic on 13 October 1916, arriving in the United Kingdom 5 days later. In 1915 however, he crossed back into Canada and moved to Halifax.

In 1914 Robert went to Calais, Maine, where he worked as a carpenter.

By 1911 Robert was employed as a clerk at a local store and his brother as a driver in the mines. His family lived in the mining town of Port Hood in Cape Breton where his father worked as a lobster packer.

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