Private Walter Frederick Beattie
PERSONAL INFORMATION
Name:
Beattie,
Walter Frederick
Date of birth: 1895-06-18
Place of birth: Cleveland Ohio U.S.A.
Next of kin: Mrs. Jessie C. Beattie, Sister, 2432 Park Ave., Montreal, Quebec
Marital status: single
Occupation (attested): Clerk
Religion: Church of England
Buried:
Huntingdon Protestant Cemetery
MILITARY INFORMATION
Regimental number: 457056
Highest Rank:
Private
(60th Battalion)
Rank detail
Private, 60th Battalion, Infantry (Army).
Degree of service: Europe
Survived war: yes
RESEARCH INFORMATION
LAC ID:
31348
Service file: B0551-S003
Uploader's Notes:
Walter married Violet Jeanetta Holdgate (born 29 Feb 1904) on 27 Apr 1927 at St. Clement's Church in Verdun, Quebec. After the war Walter worked as a Canadian Immigration Officer so he and his family moved around a lot to the different border crossings in Quebec; he also worked in Ottawa for the Canadian Immigration Department. Also, he was a songwirter; in fact that's what he has entered on his 'joining up' papers. He was also an excellent pianist and also wrote plays. He died in 1946 in Huntington, Quebec. He was only 51 years of age. He was probably working at one of the at the border crossings near Huntington. He is buried in the Huntington Protestant Cemetery. From Steuart Beattie (son)He was born in Cleveland,Ohio, June 18, 1895, of Canadian-born parents and came to Canada at age nIne with his mother to live on her parents small farm on the northwest side of Lake Memphermagog in the Eastern Townships. The farm was inherited by his mother and his father, on retirement, bought adjacent land to create a dairy farm. Walter went to school in Magog and later to Stanstead College at Standstead Plain.
Walter was nineteen when World War I erupted. He enlisted in Montreal to serve in the Canadian Overseas Expeditionary Force, initially on April 29, 1915 but, for unexplained reasons, he repeated the process of attestation on June 2, 1915. A surviving letter to his mother of Aug 15, 1915 was sent from Valcartier, Quebec where he was in training first with the 14th Battalion and later with the 27th Battery Field Artillery. He served in Flanders as a private infantryman with the 60th Canadian Infantry Battalion, 1st Canadian Corps, recruited largely in Montreal (what Walter referred to as “Craig Street’s Last Hope”). He was wounded twice at Ypres (Ieper) in West Flanders
Walter (then age 21) was wounded in the left leg on June 3 near the Menen road (now Route N9) and the village of Hooge, east of Ypres, in trenches in the vicinity of what was called the “China Wall”, a fortification made of sand bags piled four feet thick and seven feet high running between Hooge and the Zillikeke road closer to Ypres. Injured perhaps largely by shrapnel (Walter was still picking bits of shrapnel out of his leg in the late 1930s when it worked its way through the skin). He was sent back into the lines and on August 12, 1916 suffered a bullet wound in the left arm at Hill 60, south of Zillikeke village and the Lille road (now Route N65/69) (these positions have been deduced from a sketch map of the battleground at Ypres preserved in Walter's letter to his mother from Kent in 1916 ). After hospitalization in Kent, he returned to Canada for discharge in 1917, having recovered use of his arm but not full dexterity of his left hand, important to his ambition to be a professional musician.
The letter to his mother comments “...the poor old 60th is nearly all wiped out. There were only 212 of the boys that left Montreal last year before the Hill 60 scrap and I guess they’re nearly all gone now. Poor boys....”
Walter’s war service is commemorated on the war memorial in Magog. He was a Legionnaire and on his death, the Huntingdon Legion branch kindly gave him a burial plot in the veterans' section of the Huntingdon Protestant cemetery.
in the Immigration Service and after a heart attack when serving at department headquarters in Ottawa in the early 1940s, he was sent "to "recover" as Immigration Officer-in-Charge at Huntingdon (in those days before much airline traffic, it was the port-of-entry controlling especially passenger train traffic from New York to Montreal). Alas, that was too much for him and he died in 1946. In the last years of Walter's life he became a recognized authority on the history of the southern Townships.
Originally attested into 27th Battery CFA on 29 April, 1915. Listed occupation as song writer on inital attestation.
From Heather Holgate
Walter Frederick Beattie was born on 18 Jun 1895 in Cleveland, Ohio, USA. When he was about 9 years old (abt. 1904), his parents and his 12 year old sister, Jessie C. Beattie, moved to the Eastern Townships in the province of Quebec (probably Magog). His parents were Adam and Irene Beattie. They married about 1890 in Stanstead, Quebec. Adam worked for the C.P.R. (Canadian Pacific Railroad); he died in 1921.Walter married Violet Jeanetta Holdgate (born 29 Feb 1904) on 27 Apr 1927 at St. Clement's Church in Verdun, Quebec. After the war Walter worked as a Canadian Immigration Officer so he and his family moved around a lot to the different border crossings in Quebec; he also worked in Ottawa for the Canadian Immigration Department. Also, he was a songwirter; in fact that's what he has entered on his 'joining up' papers. He was also an excellent pianist and also wrote plays. He died in 1946 in Huntington, Quebec. He was only 51 years of age. He was probably working at one of the at the border crossings near Huntington. He is buried in the Huntington Protestant Cemetery. From Steuart Beattie (son)He was born in Cleveland,Ohio, June 18, 1895, of Canadian-born parents and came to Canada at age nIne with his mother to live on her parents small farm on the northwest side of Lake Memphermagog in the Eastern Townships. The farm was inherited by his mother and his father, on retirement, bought adjacent land to create a dairy farm. Walter went to school in Magog and later to Stanstead College at Standstead Plain.
Walter was nineteen when World War I erupted. He enlisted in Montreal to serve in the Canadian Overseas Expeditionary Force, initially on April 29, 1915 but, for unexplained reasons, he repeated the process of attestation on June 2, 1915. A surviving letter to his mother of Aug 15, 1915 was sent from Valcartier, Quebec where he was in training first with the 14th Battalion and later with the 27th Battery Field Artillery. He served in Flanders as a private infantryman with the 60th Canadian Infantry Battalion, 1st Canadian Corps, recruited largely in Montreal (what Walter referred to as “Craig Street’s Last Hope”). He was wounded twice at Ypres (Ieper) in West Flanders
Walter (then age 21) was wounded in the left leg on June 3 near the Menen road (now Route N9) and the village of Hooge, east of Ypres, in trenches in the vicinity of what was called the “China Wall”, a fortification made of sand bags piled four feet thick and seven feet high running between Hooge and the Zillikeke road closer to Ypres. Injured perhaps largely by shrapnel (Walter was still picking bits of shrapnel out of his leg in the late 1930s when it worked its way through the skin). He was sent back into the lines and on August 12, 1916 suffered a bullet wound in the left arm at Hill 60, south of Zillikeke village and the Lille road (now Route N65/69) (these positions have been deduced from a sketch map of the battleground at Ypres preserved in Walter's letter to his mother from Kent in 1916 ). After hospitalization in Kent, he returned to Canada for discharge in 1917, having recovered use of his arm but not full dexterity of his left hand, important to his ambition to be a professional musician.
The letter to his mother comments “...the poor old 60th is nearly all wiped out. There were only 212 of the boys that left Montreal last year before the Hill 60 scrap and I guess they’re nearly all gone now. Poor boys....”
Walter’s war service is commemorated on the war memorial in Magog. He was a Legionnaire and on his death, the Huntingdon Legion branch kindly gave him a burial plot in the veterans' section of the Huntingdon Protestant cemetery.
in the Immigration Service and after a heart attack when serving at department headquarters in Ottawa in the early 1940s, he was sent "to "recover" as Immigration Officer-in-Charge at Huntingdon (in those days before much airline traffic, it was the port-of-entry controlling especially passenger train traffic from New York to Montreal). Alas, that was too much for him and he died in 1946. In the last years of Walter's life he became a recognized authority on the history of the southern Townships.
Uploader's Research notes: [Private Army Canadian Infantry 60th Battalion A Company ]
ARCHIVAL INFORMATION
Date added: 2010-01-07
Last modified: 2013-07-20