Stephenson, Edwin Howard

Edwin Howard Stephenson, the second son of William Howard and Caroline Emily Stephenson (née Farrow), was born in Tillsonburg, Ontario, on 20 April 1886. In 1902 in Hamilton, he worked as a watchmaker, and, then in 1906, he opened a small jewelry store in the Manitoulin Islands. In 1910 he entered Huron College and the University of Western Ontario. Ordained as a Deacon in 1916, he obtained a B.A. in 1917, and was ordained as an Anglican priest on 26 May 1918. He resigned his charge at the parish of Desboro Williamsford and Holland Centre on 11 June 1918.

On 2 July 1918, he went into training with the Canadian Army Medical Corps at London, Ont. On 11 October 1918, as part of the Canadian Siberian Expeditionary Force (No. 11 Stationary Hospital), he set sail from Vancouver to Vladivostok. With an advance party of soldiers on the Trans-Siberian Railway, he travelled into the interior of Russia to Omsk and back. Although he was scheduled to return to Canada with the C.S.E.F on 18 May 1919, he contracted smallpox and died on 23 May 1919. He is buried in the Churkin Russian Naval Cemetery.

2015-6-11

W. Laufs