Private Albert Laurie Harlow
Private Albert Laurie Harlow was born in North Brookfield on January 29th, 1891, to Almon (Mannie) and Dora (nee Waterman) Harlow. Albert had four sisters, Doris, Harriet, Jean and Elsie; and two brothers, Ralph and Willis. They were a small-town merchant family. A Baptist, he stood 5 feet 6 inches tall (168 cm), weighed 160 pounds (73 kg), and had brown hair and brown eyes.
Albert graduated from Horton Academy (now Acadia University) in 1908 and also had a diploma from a technical school in Boston. At the outbreak of the War, he returned to Liverpool and was working as a machinist when he enlisted on December 15th, 1915, at 24 years old.
Albert joined the 25th Battalion (Nova Scotia Regiment) as an Infantryman and was assigned the rank of Private and regimental number 733462. Private Harlow sailed from Halifax on the SS Olympic on July 23rd, 1916, and arrived in England on July 31st. He deployed to Havre, France with his unit on April 13th, 1917.
The Nova Scotia Regiment made slow progress in France and was bogged down in heavy trench warfare in hellish conditions, fighting the German 4th Army at Passchendaele in the autumn of 1917. From Veterans Canada website - It was a region largely made up of flat, low ground that was kept dry only with the help of an intricate series of dikes and ditches. Three years of heavy fighting there, however, had entirely destroyed these drainage systems. The ground, churned up by millions of artillery shells, turned to sticky mud when wet. In 1917, the autumn rains came early and turned the battlefield into a sea of muck, the likes of which still make Passchendaele synonymous with the horrific fighting conditions most people picture when thinking of the First World War. 275,000 British and Canadian lives were lost, as were 220,000 German lives.
Like many of his comrades who fought in the trenches at Passchendaele, Private Harlow was first reported missing, and then presumed dead on November 8th, 1917. He was 26 years and 10 months old when he perished. Such was the state of the battlefield that Private Harlow’s remains were never recovered.
​
Private Harlow’s sister Harriet served as a nurse behind the lines in France; one of the unsung heroes of the Great War. She made local enquiries about the circumstances of his death to fully inform the family of his final days and hours. She learned that he was employed as a stretcher bearer during the battle, and that a group of twenty four men were shelled by the Germans, killing fourteen. Private Harlow died instantly of shrapnel wounds. One of the survivors reported that Private Harlow “was a very good living fellow and I think I am safe in saying that his soul went to the proper place” Private Harlow’s father, Maurice was quoted in the Liverpool Advance; “His short life was most exemplary all through. We have the best assurances that the young man is now safe, in a true sense, but just now our hearts are very sore”.
Private Harlow left “the whole of my property and effects” to his mother, Dora. Private Harlow’s father, Maurice, received the Memorial Plaque and Scroll, and his mother Dora was awarded the Memorial Cross Medal (also known as the Silver Cross).
Private Harlow is commemorated on Panel 26-30 at the Ypres Memorial in Belgium, along with fifty-five thousand Canadian and Allied soldiers who were lost without trace (Memorial Inscription). He is also remembered on the Honour Roll of congregation members of the North Brookfield United Baptist Church who served “In the Great War” (as is his sister Harriet who survived the war).
Private Harlow is commemorated on page 251 of the World War One Book of Remembrance. He is also listed on the Caledonia Cenotaph.
​
​
Online References
War Grave Search – https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/1592825/albert-laurie-harlow/
Local Grave Search - https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/12050866/albert-laurie-harlow
No Grave Marker in North Queens
Canadian Virtual War Memorial - https://www.veterans.gc.ca/en/remembrance/memorials/canadian-virtual-war-memorial/detail/1592825?Albert%20Laurie%20Harlow
Canadian Census - https://recherche-collection-search.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/census/index
First World War Personnel Records Database (Download size of file is 15.9 Meg) - https://recherche-collection-search.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/Home/Record?app=pffww&IdNumber=442222&ecopy=378751a
Other Source https://dokumen.pub/courtship-love-and-marriage-in-nineteenth-century-english-canada-9780773562417.html
