Buckles, Jack

John Edwin “Jack” Buckles was born 17 February 1894 to Alfred and Mary Buckles in Long Branch, Ontario. His father was a merchant who had emigrated from the United Kingdom around 1889. By 1901, Jack was the seventh in a family of eleven children. By 1911 Jack was still living with his family and working as a bricklayer in Toronto.

He was drafted into the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) 19 December 1917 in Toronto and assigned to #30 Detachment Canadian Engineers Training Depot. After initial training he was sent to the United Kingdom aboard SS Metagama arriving there 11 March 1918. Here he was taken into the Canadian Engineers Training Depot at Seaford and upon completion of this to the Engineers Reserve Depot. He was sent to France 18 July 1918 to join his field unit, the 12th Battalion Canadian Engineers, with whom he stayed until March 1919. He was then returned to United Kingdom where he was placed with the Nova Scotia Reserve Depot in Repon until he was sent to the demobilization camp at Rhye in May where he was soon repatriated to Canada aboard HMT Mauritania. After a four day trip, he arrived in Halifax and discharged there 14 May 1919.

While Buckles was overseas he had been sending his pay to Olive MacRae, a stenographer who he promptly married her upon his return on 16 September 1919. The couple would live in the village of Whitevale in York county, Ontario, resuming his occupation as a bricklayer. The couple had two daughters and a son, although the two daughters died at a young age. In 1949 Jack was working as a carpenter. By 1965 he had retired and was living with Olive in Elgin county, Ontario.

Jack Buckles died in 1972 and is buried in the Whitevale Cemetery, Whitevale, Ontario.