Skip to main content

Lest we Forget- Thomas Humphries Tickner

                 
I have an interesting connection to my Great-great Uncle Tom. Not only am I proud of his service and appreciative of his ultimate sacrifice, I had his hat. 
Thomas Humphries Pratt Tickner was born 22 Feb, 1889 in Portsmouth, England. He was my Great-Grampa Charlie's kid brother, and eventually followed Charlie to Canada, arriving in 1909. I haven't been able to find out much about his life in Canada, but am certain he must've stopped in Ontario to visit his brother Charlie and family on his way west. He settled in Edmonton, Alberta and somewhere along the way became a clerk and got married.
When he enlisted in Jan 1915, he listed his previous military service on his Attestation papers. I know that when he was a teenager in England, he was what we might today call a cadet with the 6th Hampshires for 3 years. He was also a part of the 19th Alberta Dragoons for 3 years, and then 2 years with the 103 Calgary Rifles. Since his wife's family, as well as his own parents and other siblings were still in England - many of whom worked or had worked at the very large naval dockyard at Portsmouth, it seems inevitable that he would heed the call of "For King and Country".
He enlisted as a Private, but was promoted almost immediately to Lance Corporal with the 49th Infantry Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force. Beyond that his service record is sadly brief. His unit sailed in June 1915, and he was killed in action on April 10, 1916 in Flanders.
He is buried at the Menin Road South Military Cemetery in Ypres (now called Ieper) in Belgium.
So back to the hat. For years we had a red serge woolen dress tunic with chain mail epaulettes and buttons stamped "19th Alberta Dragoons", and an actual brown Stetson hat, both just like a Mountie's dress uniform. I knew vaguely that there was a connection to my dad's side of the family but didn't know much more than that. It made for a great Mountie Halloween costume, both for my dad, and later for me. Just run some yellow electric tape down the side of a pair of black pants, add a handlebar Dudley Do-Right mustache, and you're good to go. Even though we used it completely irreverently, I still valued it as something historical. Something important. Until the flood. A few years back we had significant water damage in our basement, and unfortunately the tunic and hat were among the victims. A very sad ending for something that traveled far, both geographically and over time. I have no idea how it even came to be in Ontario, but perhaps Tom's wife sent some items to his brother, my great-grandfather, and the uniform was amongst them. We'll never know.
Remembering Tom Tickner, and appreciating his service and his sacrifice.
                     

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Welcome!

Welcome to my first post! You made it, and more importantly, so did I.  This blog has been a over a year in the making, which in hind-sight seems a bit silly, but I got mired down trying to find the perfect name. Read more about my blog naming tribulations  here. It really shouldn't have mattered so much what I called it, and perfection is clearly over-rated, but that's what happened. Then I proceeded to get sidetracked down 6852 rabbit holes (before I lost count), and here we are. So let's get you caught up. I spend a LOT of time playing hide & seek with my ancestors, and sometimes other peoples' ancestors too. Some have been quite easy to find, while other ancestors are particularly good at the game and are still in hiding. But I'm also pretty good at the game, and persistent too (did I hear someone say obsessed? shush!) With a combination of digging through records, solid detective work, collaboration, circumstantial evidence and/or plain dumb luck, one...
Post a Comment
Read more

Remembering those who kept the home fires burning

In the course of my family research, I often come across people who served in various theatres of war. There are always a few moments of anxiety until I can find out if they survived, or if they made the ultimate sacrifice. Whether on land, in the air, or at sea, it is sad to learn of lives cut short by war.  In past years I've written about the lives and service of some of those in my family tree who fought for their country.  Recently, I've developed an additional appreciation for those who didn't see active battle, but stayed home, quietly holding things together on the home front. For families in North America and Australia, life was very different from what families experienced who lived with privation, under fire, threat of invasion, actual occupation, in England, Scotland, Europe and Asia.  Some men, like my grandfather Stan Ticknor & great-grandfather Charlie Ticknor,  worked in factories that were essential to the war effort, like General Steel Wares (G...
Post a Comment
Read more

Lest we forget - Robert Steele

Robert Steele was my uncle, but I don't know if we ever crossed paths, as he died, tragically at age 44, the year I was born. He was my mom's eldest brother, a half brother in fact, which she didn't learn about until she was around 16. That's what happens when you are the youngest of 7 children - everyone just assumes you know things. Either way, I don't get the impression that being half siblings mattered at all. They were one big family. End of story. Bob was a veteran of  WWII. He was a Wireless Air Gunner. Being pretty non-military I had no idea what that means, so I found this interview with a Wireless Air Gunner  Click to see interview with a Wireless Air Gunner Veteran . If the link is broken or you don't have time, the W.A.G. learned morse code, and then learned to shoot from a plane's gun turret. I was surprised so much of the training for RCAF crew occurred in Southern Ontario, near Guelph, St. Catharines and Fingal. Who knew? Since privacy r...
Post a Comment
Read more