Botherson, Robert Joseph

Robert Joseph Botherson was born on 4 May 1897. His family lived in the mining town of Port Hood in Cape Breton where his father worked as a lobster packer. By 1911 Robert was employed as a clerk at a local store and his brother as a driver in the mines. In 1914 Robert went to Calais, Maine, where he worked as a carpenter. In 1915 however, he crossed back into Canada and moved to Halifax.

He attested for the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) in Halifax on 28 February 1916, claiming his date of birth as “May 1898”, into the 185th Canadian Infantry Battalion (Cape Breton Highlanders) and left Canada aboard SS Olympic on 13 October 1916, arriving in the United Kingdom 5 days later. He spent much of the war on depot duties in Whitby, United Kingdom, being awarded an unpaid appointment as Acting Lance Corporal in November 1916. Shortly after this appointment was confirmed in January 1918 he elected to revert to Private to join his unit in France. He arrived there in March 1918 and was assigned to the 25th Canadian Infantry Battalion (Nova Scotia Rifles). By June he was serving at Brigade headquarters and did not return to his regiment until after the armistice. He was sent back to the United Kingdom in January 1919 for demobilization and returned to Canada at Halifax on 4 April 1919 on the transport Northland. He discharged the next day.

By 1921, Robert was back in Port Hood working as a miner but returned to the United States later that year. In 1930 he is living in Los Angeles with his wife, Nellie, and a 2-year-old son, working as a building contractor. Here he participated in the annual conference of the California State Command of the Canadian Legion of the British Empire Service League in 1937.

At the outbreak of the Second World War he returned to Canada to enlist, this time with the 2nd Battalion, Irish Fusiliers of Canada, on 4 September 1940. He was discharged from the in Army,on 1 December 1941 to enlist in the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF). Botherson joined the RCAF on the same day as his discharge from the Army and served until 8 March 1946. He held the rank of Sergeant while in the Army and in the RCAF, attained the rank of Warrant Officer Class 2. He returned to California in 1946 and married Robina Bernice, originally of Port Nelson, British Columbia, and settled in Sun Valley, California. He was naturalized an American citizen in 1960, and died in Los Angeles on 24 June 1971.