Allan Burgess July 23-1890-1963

Grandfather was born in Oldham, Lancashire, England July 23-1890 and as I understand it emigrated to Canada with his family when he was about five years old. His family moved to Cobourg Ont. where his father was a Policeman and became Chief of Police in Cobourg. Down the road at some point he marries Helena Fayle, pictured with him, and their youngest son Mark. They had five children, John, Charlie, Allan, Edith, and Mark. Allan Burgess joined the Army to fight in the 1st War on June 7, 1915 in Cobourg. During the war Allan was among the troops who were gassed. Any time I remember him, I remember him as a miserable old man, and although I never gave it much thought when I was young, in retrospect I guess, it was the after effects of the war. If he ever saw a fly in the house he would go on the warpath until he killed it, and would rant and rave and accuse me if I was around of letting the fly in. He seemed to have an unhealthy dislike of flies, I guess this would stand to reason if you were pinned down in trenches with dead bodies and dead animals all around unable to escape, the after effects of battle. The first time I went down to his place in Port Hope after running away from the orphanage, he got drunk and kicked me out of the house and I had to sleep in the car, in the drive way. When he did get drunk which was often, he would go around the house wildly gesticulating reciting " The Charge of the Light Brigade ". My grandmother seemed to think the world of me, I don't know if it was because I was the first grandchild, or my pleasing personality, but my grandfather seemed to think about me about as much as I thought about him. I think the old man played his children off against one another, and the Burgess trait seemed to be extreme jealousy. At some time after returning home from the war, they moved to a house on Hope St. in Port Hope right on Lake Ontario. The wave action on Lake Ontario where their house was, was eroding the bank below their house and they were afraid the house was going to be washed into the lake so, for that reason, they moved to Bridgeport Ont. a suburb of Kitchener. I guess they moved to the Kitchener area because it was a growing industrial town with many factories, and rubber plants, in fact Kitchener was known as little Akron after the rubber capital of the USA. Kitchener was where Uncle John met his first wife Beatrice, Uncle Allan met his wife Pearl, Uncle Charlie met his wife Ruth, and my father Nick, met my mother Edith Eleanor . At some time after all of this and before the outbreak of the second War they moved back to Port Hope, to a house at 107 Hope St, about a block from the CPR railroad tracks. My grandmother took care of me a couple times, I guess when mother had to go to the hospital to have Max, and Rosemary, and while I lived with them I remember riding around with the Ice Man on his horse drawn wagon while he made the deliveries. Grandfather visited with us a few times as he did with his sons, but never left his house to often, tending to his garden. Grandfather died in 1963 which would make him 73 years old.