Sapper James Bruce Gould #434097
Born: November 8, 1881 in East Zorra Township
Died: April 18, 1926 in Stratford
Buried: Avondale Cemetery, Stratford
Attended (school): Public School in Harmony, Stratford Collegiate Institute
After School: worked in Western Canada
Enlisted (date and place): December 31, 1914 in Calgary
Trained: Alberta, Canada and England
Served: England, France and Belgium
After the War: carpenter in Stratford (as health allowed)
Family:
Parents John Gould and Charlotte Scott
Siblings John Howard, Adella Florence, Cora Gretta, Erle Alden
Wife Helen Rennie Dunsmore
Children none
Other: plaque on his home at 37 Duoro Street, Stratford
Supplementary information from the Gould family:
Born in East Zorra Township, Oxford County, Ontario, in 1881, Bruce Gould, a carpenter by trade, enlisted as a Private with the 50th Battalion CEF on December 31, 1914 at Calgary, Alberta. The Battalion sailed for England on September 10, 1915 and, on September 20th, Gould was taken on the strength of the 23rd Battalion at West Sandling Camp, near Hythe in Hampshire. On January 1, 1916 he joined the 9th Reserve Battalion and then transferred, on February 5th, to the 10th Battalion in France. Six months later he was transferred again, to the 3rd Field Company, Canadian Engineers, at the rank Sapper.
Sapper Bruce Gould served on the Western Front until September 26, 1917 when he was caught in a gas attack at the Battle of Passchendaele. He was treated at No. 16 Field Ambulance and discharged on October 12th to resume duty with the 3rd Field Company Canadian Engineers where he managed to serve for another year until the end of the war. Shortly after returning to England in 1919, however, he was admitted to the Canadian General Hospital, Bramshott, where his admission record noted; “Got cold while coming across the channel from France on March 20th, cough and fever developed so was sent to No.12 General Hospital …”. He was diagnosed with “Bronchitis, coughing and shortness of breath” but with the added observation that his illness originated in “Shell gas poisoning, September 26, 1917”.
Released from hospital on April 8th, he boarded the SS Olympic at Southampton a week later and sailed for Canada. He was discharged at No. 2 District Depot, Toronto, on April 23, 1919, with his final medical report noting, ”Bronchitis, Man appears to have been addicted to C2H50H”.
Four months later after leaving the army Bruce Gould married Helen Rennie Dunsmore (1883-1965) at Stratford on August 22, 1919. Bruce worked as a carpenter when his health allowed but the gas attack of September 1917 had done severe damage. Seven years after his return from the trenches of Belgium and France, Bruce Gould died at Stratford on April 18, 1926. He was only 44 years of age and his death certificate cited cause of death as “emphysema – gassed in the war” (with no mention of alcoholism or liver disease) and the War Graves Register recorded “Circumstances of Casualty…..emphysema – death related to service.”
