Albert Vernon Hansford

Text reads: In Memory of Private A V Hansford, 424871. 8th Bn, Canadian Infantry who died on 06 December 1917 Age 20, Son of Elizabeth Jane Stevens (formerly Hansford), of Torbrook Mines, Annapolis Co., Nova Scotia, and the late Alfred Albert Hansford, Remembered with Honour, Epsom Cemetery, Commemorated in perpetuity by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission

Born January 20, 1897, at Torbrook Mines, Nova Scotia

Died December 6, 1917, in England, of war wounds.

Father: Alfred Albert Hansford (1870-1906)

Mother: Elizabeth Jane Hambly (1871-1925)

Albert joined the Baptist Church when he was about 15 while working for Leslie Armstrong--against his mother's wishes. (Their father had requested that all the children be brought up Methodist just before he died.) At about 16, he went to Manitoba and enlisted in the Canadian Army.

While picking up wounded soldiers in France during World War I, he was struck by shrapnel in the chest, and was paralyzed from the chest down. He would write letters lying on his back. He talked of wanting to come home. The government offered to pay for his mother to go to England to visit him before he died, but she declined. She had sprained her ankle on board ship going to Canada when she was 13.

He wasn't allowed to go home, and he died and was buried at Epsom, England.


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Revised May 27, 2014