© 2022, Christian Cassidy
To commemorate
the 100th anniversary of the start of the First World War, I am working
on a series of blog posts that will look at some of the
Manitobans who died in action. For more about this project and links to
other posts follow this link.
Image: Operation Picture Me. Signature: Attestation papers
The Dicksons were one of the thousands of families who came to Manitoba to start a new life only to find it torn apart a few years later by the First World War.
Their earliest decades were centred around a relatively small area of the West End of Winnipeg.
1911 Census of Canada (Library and Archives Canada)
William Dickson came to Canada from Northern Ireland in 1911 with his wife, Annie (nee Connor), and their one-year-old son, James. They initially settled in a rooming house at 806 Sargent Avenue and William, a shoemaker by trade, got a job with the CPR.
The following year, they bought a house at 819 Alverstone Street and on April 20, 1914, had a second son, Robert Connor. (A third child, a daughter, died in infancy.)
To help make ends meet the Dicksons at times took in a couple of lodgers.
Dickson enlisted on December 8, 1914. At age 42 he was older than most recruits, but prior to coming to Canada he was a military man having served 19 years with the Royal Garrison Artillery including a nine-year stint in India.
In August 1915, Dickson arrived at Plymouth, England, and was transferred to the 5th Brigade, Canadian Field Artillery as a gunner. They left for France in January 1916.
Dickson was killed in action on September 16, 1916. His circumstances of death card provides few details, noting only that he was killed "in the field" in the "vicinity of Polzieres". He is buried in Pozieres British Cemetery, France.
He is commemorated on the Winnipeg Next of Kin Memorial, the North Down and Ards Virtual Memorial, and the Canadian Virtual War Memorial.
For Annie Dickson and her children, the youngest of which would have no memory of his father, they appeared to have had an unsettled life right from the time William enlisted.
It was not uncommon for families to have to relocate when the "man of the house" went off to war as it usually meant a cut in household income. It seems, though, that they went from owning a home at 819 Alverstone, (street directories indicate they were homeowners not renters), to moving every few months until late in the war.
Papers in William Dickson's war record show numerous addresses for Annie, some scratched out two or three times to add a new one. They include 545 Home, 397 Beverley, 829 Ellice (a rooming house) and 816 Sargent.
It is unclear why Annie did not stay on Alverstone Street and take in more lodgers or couldn't settle in one place for long after William left.
It could be that she had to bounce around constantly in search of appropriate and affordable housing for her and her children as some women did. On a more positive note, it could indicate that the Dicksons had a wide circle of friends and family willing to put them up for a time.
A sign that it may have been the latter is that most of these addresses appear to be private homes and not rooming houses. (Annie also had a brother and sister living in the city who would surely have helped out if she had trouble finding housing.)
Top: 549 Simcoe Street in 2014 (Google Street View)
Bottom: 1926 Census (Library and Archives Canada)
Things settled down for the Dicksons late in the war.
The family lived at Claremont Court, a group of terraced cottages on Burnell Street near Ellice,
in 1917 and 1918.
From 1919 to 1921, Annie is listed as the homeowner of 816 Sargent Avenue. Her sister and brother-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. George Frame, lived with them for some of this time. According to William's military file, this is the address where Annie's special widow's allowance of $64, (about $850 in today's dollars), was sent to in 1920.
The family finally settled down for the long-term when Annie purchased a 12-year-old, 780-square-foot house at 549 Simcoe Street in 1922. By this time James was 12 and Robert was 7.
Street directories don't list an occupation for Annie, so it is likely she lived on her war widow's pension. Both sons continued to live at the family home through the 1930s which would have easily paid the mortgage.
Annie Dickson died on January 8, 1940, at the age of 64. She is buried in Elwood Cemetery.
James left school at age 15 or 16 to work as a messenger for DeMontfort
Press on Bannatnye Avenue at Adelaide - his first job in what
would be a career as a printer.
After the death of Annie, James moved to Queen Street in St. James to be closer to his job at the St. James Leader Press newspaper. He married Betty and had a son named William.
James Dickson died in 1948 at the age of 37 and is buried in St. James Cemetery.
By age 18, Robert had a job as a messenger with The Public Press where he would work for the next 20 years. He continued to live at the Simcoe Street home through the early 1940s and while he served in the Second World War aboard the minesweeper HMCS Blairmore.
Robert made major changes in his life during and immediately after the war. He married Dorothy in Winnipeg in 1940, presumably before he left. They were granted a divorce in August 1944.
After his return, he moved from the Simcoe Street home to a rented house at 142 Burrin Avenue in West Kildonan. Around 1947, he left The Public Press for the apparel trade. His first job was as a salesman at Long's Hats, a menswear store in the Avenue Building.
By 1950, he had married Bertha and was a commercial salesman for Stanfileds. The mid-1950s puts the couple living at 512 Montague Avenue with Robert working for F. O. Burgess and Son, an apparel manufacturer and agent.
Robert Connor Dickson died November 9, 1999 at St. Boniface Hospital at the age of 85. He is interred at the Assumption Chapel Mausoleum.
Related:
William Dickson Canadian Virtual War Memorial
William Dickson North Down and Ards Virtual Memorial
William Dickson (86122) Military File Library and Archives Canada
Operation Picture Me
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