Family Values .. the stuff we're made of
Mom, Roberta Sherif Dinsmore, was 14 when WW1 broke out in August, 1914. She and her older brother Arthur, 16, and her younger brother Charles, 12, were where they always were at that season -- at Rostrevor on Lake Roseau in Muskoka country, north of Toronto. Their granddad, Arthur, had built the place when he and his wife immigrated to Canada in 1870 and her father, Robert, ran it now and built cottages and houses (in Toronto) The resort was a Canadian version of what he had know as a child growing up in Rostrevor, Northern Ireland.
The German Chef at the hotel that had been hired for the season took the first steamboat out to Gravenhurst - and the train south to Toronto -- he learned the news from the Toronto newspapers that arrived by Royal Mail steamboat the same day, every day.
Oldest brother Richard Lear was somewhere in the wilds of North Ontario when the war broke out. He was in his 19th year - just graduated from high school. He caught the first train to Toronto and enlisted in the Queen's York Rangers. He was in Belgium by early 1915.
Thus the summer "season" of 1914 ended rather abruptly for the Dinsmore family. They returned to Toronto, Robert tidied up his affairs and prepared to join the militia artillery battery in which he served. [Sgt Major Robert Dinsmore the shorter of the 2 mustached sergeants.]
Arthur enlisted in the artillery as soon as he turned 17 and went overseas with his dad.
By the Grace of God my mother's menfolk all returned in 1918. Changed.
Private Richard Dinsmore came back a celebrated officer in a Regiment that historically was renowned for its raiding .... Richard went for German prisoners night after night.
Gunner Arthur Dinsmore came back Pilot Officer Arthur Dinsmore - from the mud of Paschendale to his dream of the skies above.
Mom's father came home the Sgt Major that he left as - with compromised health - he had been buried by shell fire several times. He became a civil servant, building inspector.
Youngest brother, Charlie, was active in high school sports, and went on to play for the Stanley Cup winning Montreal Maroons, in 1926. Dinny Dinsmore.
These then are the men, the characters, that brought inspiration, reality, courage and determination into my life, through my mother's recollection. Some, like Arthur-the pilot, I got to know very well. Others, like Richard, I never got to have an adult conversation with. And Mom's Dad, my Granddad, Robert, died in September 1939, just after Poland was invaded - before I was born.
Richard and Arthur would both return to war after 1939. Richard, as a senior officer commanding troop transport trips to England on the Queen Mary. Arthur, as a First officer in Ferry Command, flying all over the world.
I still have clear memories of my talks with both Richard and Arthur - especially Arthur - and from time-to time I would like to share some of their descriptions -- not as official history -- but as anecdotal stuff. The kind of stories that get told to the family, by the family fire.
Proud Canadian