Collection RC0872 - Reuben Alvin Jukes (Jucksch) diaries

Reuben Jucksch was born on 5 July 1887 to Ernst August Jucksch and Maria Kalbfleisch of Hanover, Ontario. He volunteered for the army in 1914 at the age of 27 and served with the 20th Canadian Battalion. On his attestation paper, he listed his profession as an artist and painted throughout the war despite prohibitions against it. Jukes’ diaries regularly noted his painting and sketching activities. He was sent to the front on 15 September 1915 and was in hospital when the diaries start, but did not indicate why. He reports the progress of the war, gas attacks, the constant noise of bombardments, and the irritation from lice. He remains in Germany and Belgium until February 1919, when he returns to England, and then is sent back to Canada in May of that year. Following the war he worked in Vaudeville both as a set painter and in various acts. He supplemented his income as a sign painter and in 1940 he founded a sign painting business in Kitchener, Ontario. Jukes died in May 1959 at the age of 71.