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Oakley and Sophia Orser family fonds
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Oakley and Sophia Orser family fonds

  • CA PANB MC2893
  • Fonds
  • 1916-1926

This fonds consists primarily of correspondence received by Oakley and Sophia Orser and members of their family, including their daughter, Augusta Orser Burrill; Oakley's father, John W. Orser, and sister, Georgia Orser, from family members serving overseas during the First World War. Taken collectively, these letters underscore the fact that many young men from Carleton County, a number from, and related to, the Orser family, enlisted for wartime service, and suggest the impact this had on their families and community.

The bulk of the correspondence is from John A. Orser, Oakley and Sophia Orser's son, but there are also letters from Augusta Orser Burrill's husband, William E. Burrill; cousin Samuel Gilbert Barter; and two of John A. Orser's wartime friends, Fred B. Wallace and Bert [?]. These letters offer news of wartime activities in England and France and, particularly, information about soldiers from Carleton County who were at the Front. They also highlight family and community ties and provide insights into feelings of loneliness, dangers, and difficulties soldiers faced during wartime.

There are also a few letters between family members at home during wartime; correspondence relating to Sophia Orser's attempts to have her son's estate distributed after his death and pertaining to Oakley Orser's claim to a pension on account of his son's wartime service; a poem by John A. Orser about working on farms in the state of Maine; a scroll commemorating the wartime sacrifice of Pte. William E. Burrill; and two photographs, one of Orser family siblings taken on the farm,and the second, a studio portrait of John A. Orser and his friend, Harold Olney, in uniform.

Order family (Oakley and Sophia)