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« on: Thursday 07 March 19 04:53 GMT (UK) »
Frederick Arthur White was born in 1877, Barton’s Bank, Aston Manor, Warwickshire to Arthur and Lydia (Ward) White. He married Florence Rebecca Allison in 1908 in Birmingham and his job as a jewelry salesman took him to Toronto, Ontario, Canada where he lived near his brother Ernest who had moved there in 1905. On Sept. 5, 1914 Fred enlisted in the 5th Field Ambulance Canadian Regiment.
He served in France for 2 years, 3 months, where he sustained a serious schrapnel wound and was hospitaliized in several hospitals over the next several years until discharged (demobilized) September 15, 1919 in Canada. He gave his intended address at that time as 3 Kenwood Avenue, Toronto, Ontario. His address in 1920 was 24 1/2 Arlington Avenue, Toronto but the record does not mention family. Did he remain there?
Throughout his service his monthly allowance was delivered to his wife “Becky” at a number of various addresses all in England: 159 Birchfield Rd, Birmingham; c/o Mrs. Stevenson, Grove Bridge House, Sellindge, Hythe, Kent; 175 Holyhead Rd, Handswrth, Birmingham; 16 Brunswick Rd, Grove Lane, Handsworth, Birmingham. The final address was within a block of his parents’ home on Antrobus Road.
Once he left the service I’ve lost track of him, Becky, and their son Frederick Norman White born in 1908. Did he return to Birmingham? Did Becky and Norman join him in Toronto? His brother Ernest had married and left Toronto for Inglewood, California, US years earlier.
Fred was my English grandmother’s little brother and she did not mention him as she did her other siblings. Other family said his healing and hospitalization was tough on him, but that is all I know from family. As I am located in North Carolina, US, I have limited access to the typical records I might use and am not sure where to go from here. Are there some obvious places I might look to follow this family? Your ideas would be very welcome. Thank you very much.