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LIEUTENANT GORDON WILLSON CROW
KILLED IN ACTION
Appalling News Received by Mayor Crow on Wednesday Afternoon, 9 May 1994-17 September 1916
[Welland Telegraph, 22 September 1916]
Lieutenant Gordon W. Crow, only son of Mayor John H. Crow and Mrs. Crow, was killed in action on Sunday last.
This news which has prostrated the Mayor’s home, and which has shocked all Welland, came in a cable to Mayor Crow from Major McDonald, and officer of the battery to which Lieut. Crow belonged, that was received here shortly after noon on Wednesday. It was further confirmed by a message from Ottawa received on Thursday morning. Of course, no further particulars are known.
To the bereaved father and mother and to Miss Muriel, the young officer’s sister, The Telegraph, speaking for everyone of its readers, extends the most heartfelt sympathy.
Lieut. Crow enlisted with the 26th battery in March 1915, and spent six months in training as a gunner. He then took out his commission as a lieutenant and qualified after a course at the R.C.M. Kingston. He was next attached to the 31st battery and served for some time without pay.
Note is made elsewhere on this page that he had been awarded the Military Cross. That cross has not yet been received for it was to be presented by the King when Lieut. Cross had leave to visit England.
The last letter received from him was dated September 4th. Since he went to the front he has been a very constant correspondent. He had the faculty of writing a good letter. One of his letters appeared anonomously in The Telegraph two months ago under the heading “A Day at the Front,” and it was much commented on.
Strangely enough he was in Germany and got out just on the eve of the outbreak of the war. His trip across the Atlantic was not without its excitements for the German raiders were then afloat.
He was born in Welland in May, 1894 and was subsequently 22 years of age. Educated at the Welland public and high school, he matriculated in 1910 and then attended Toronto University and Victoria College, graduating in arts in 1914. He passed his first year examinations in Medicine in 1915.
Gordon Crow had in a marked degree those qualities that have been the pride of the British people. Stalwart of fame he was an athlete of note. He excelled in tennis, basketball, water polo and as a rifle shot. He represented the University in many of its intercollegiate games, and won medals for both shooting and swimming. When a mere lad before he left for University he was a member of the Welland Rifle Club.
Gordon Crow will not return again to the home where he was loved, to the town whose pride he was and to the country whose arms he has honored, but he he will ever have here grateful hearts who prize him for his true worth as a young man of clean record and clean heart, brave, chivalrous, modest-in a word a gentleman.
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