BX November 2, 1914

They Formerly Resided Here – At Least Two Members of London Contingent Claim Brantford as Their Home

There are a number of former Brantfordites in the troops assembled at London for the second contingent.

One of the most interesting men in the school is a husky, big, good natured Armenian, G. Nersessian.  He writes English much better than he talks it, but is willing to be accommodating either way.  He was born in Sivas.  That place happens to be under Turkish rule, but when someone called him Turk by accident the first show of scrap came over him and he bared a pair of arms that looked like piano legs.  He pats himself on the back for having been a rebel in his own land and for having participated in repeated uprisings in Armenia in 1895, 1896 and 1897.  He also found some pleasure in explain that his people “they Sultan Abdual Hamit – dump his chair and lose his job.”  Then years ago he came to this country and has worked as a machinist around Berlin and Brantford.  He however, went to Windsor to enlist and went to London along with the recruits from the Twenty-first of Essex.

The other day the Seventh Regiment, of London, took on a husky young fellow describing himself as Alex Ansley of Brantford, a native of Minsk, Russia and a veteran of the Fourth Siberian Rifles with which he served in the Russo-Jap war.  He has a rifle wound in his left arm to show for his service on that occasion, but is glad to get back again.  He was in Manchuria during the latter part of the war and saw some rough times.