Click here for images of Grampa Gallson’s WWI documents.
In 1916, Grampa made his way to Webbwood, Ontario where he enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Army on March 10. On August 8, he began to send $15 per month back to his father, Mihkel, in Estonia. He reported his trade as “Lumberjack”, not CPR worker. He weighed 155 pounds. He disembarked the S. S. Metagama, the same ship on which GG immigrated, in Liverpool on August 19, went through a battery of Anti-Typhoid inoculations, but was diagnosed with mumps and parotitis on October 2. By October 25 he had been misdiagnosed with Rubella which ended up being gonorrhea. The next day, he bequeathed all his estate to a Miss Gladys Hall.
Between August 19, 1916 and December, 1918 Grampa had mumps, three rounds of gonorrhea, syphilis and a shrapnel wound in the head. He fought at Vimy Ridge, France and in the Battle of Passchendaele in Ypres, Belgium. Battling venereal diseases came with painful shots of arsenic, mercury and galyl, which was also used for malaria. His medical logs read as if the army just got fed up with him and sent him home on the S. S. Olympic back to Canada. Three times he was discharged from the hospital as “cured” of syphilis.
While hospitalized in England during WWI, a doctor writes that because he’s Scandinavian and didn’t speak English, Grampa was thought of as being “mentally slow”. How frustrating was that for him, to be treated as if he were mentally defective? But Grampa learned, perhaps while recuperating in England, that he could use his charm and good looks to enamor young ladies to help him navigate English speaking society.
He was 22 years old, 5’ 9”, blue eyes – a “Lumberman” with his regimental number tattooed on his right forearm. His bad English, head wound and perhaps an unwillingness to talk about it, is the likely reason why his obituary merely says he was wounded at Passchendaele with no mention of Vimy Ridge.
Grampa received the British War Medal and Victory Medal. These medals are reportedly on display in the Royal Canadian Legion 254 in Mattawa, Ontario where Grampa was a charter member.
In the early 1900s, there was virtually only one cure for syphilis. A relatively new discovery known as the “606 Compound” or Salvarsan but throughout Grampa’s detailed medical logs, there is no mention of him being treated with this. Civilian treatments for syphilis could cost between $300 and $1,000, which was out of reach for many patients. Some hospitals refused to admit patients with syphilis because there was such stigma surrounding it, and funding for public clinics was cut. Penicillin was not used for venereal diseases until the mid 1940’s.
Without being treated with Salvarsan, Grampa was not yet cured, but there was another golden opportunity for Grampa to seek treatment for free.
Toronto had a hospital specifically for WWI soldiers returning with syphilis, the Military Base Hospital on Gerrard Street, the former Toronto General Hospital. If Grampa was forced into this hospital upon his return to Canada, perhaps it was here that Salvarsan would have been used.
I ordered the admission documents from September 1918 to December 1919. I wanted to find his name so badly amongst the hundreds of soldiers who came back with syphilis and gonorrhea that I checked three times through the 15 multipage documents. It was with disappointment that I had to admit that Grampa never took advantage of this.
It was interesting going through the hundreds of names, many treated for influenza but mostly for venereal disease. They were discharged either “to duty” or as “invalids” perhaps testifying to the success rate of Salvarsan.
The pictures of Grampa in his American uniform were thought to be his WWI pictures until my sister Donna stumbled across a 52nd Battalion website in 2010 managed by Lt. Tal Fisher in Thunder Bay. On a mission to have Grampa’s name included in the website’s database as a member of the 52nd Battalion, she emailed Lt. Fisher all the pictures of Grampa. Lt. Fisher’s response:
Did you know that all three photos are of a US WWI uniform, not Canadian.
The diamond patch on the left sleeve is most likely US Army 5th Division: which was a red diamond (there was a white ‘5’ in the center of the diamond, but this was removed after arriving in France. The 5th Div was assembled in France on 1 May, 1918 so the photo must have been taken some time after that.
The chevrons low on the left sleeve are service chevron stripes: each one represents 6 months overseas duty which should indicate 2.5 years +.
The two chevrons high on the left indicate Corporal.
The ribbons over his left pocket are too blurred to distinguish but there is clearly 4 or 5.
I managed to find and reconnect with Lt. Tal Fisher in August 2025 who is now living in Victoria, BC. Grampa was never deployed while in the US Army, not in the 5th Division, not a corporal, and was only in the US army for 9 months. So it seems that Grampa had all his “army” photos taken in the USA using a borrowed uniform with bonus badges, ribbons and medals. He was awarded only two medals: British War Medal and the British Victory Medal. The cross medal on the uniform looks like a US Marine marksmanship medal. You guessed it – he was never in the Marine’s and beside “marksmanship skill” on his American Enlistment document, it says “none”.In August 2025, on a visit to Barbara Turcotte, I finally discovered a picture of Grampa in his Canadian uniform.
Below is information that Wayne sent me and I stored for the future.
The 52nd Battalion, 1915-1919
No sooner had Canada entered the war against Germany and its allies in 1914 than it was decided to raise an expeditionary force for battle overseas. The local militia, which mustered the day after war was declared, immediately began a recruiting drive to bring itself up to strength, and there was no shortage of men willing to fight. By March 1915 the 52nd battalion was formed as the first complete overseas battalion from this region of Ontario and, in short order, the 52nd had recruited 47 officers and 1,898 other ranks many of whom came from the old 96th. Before the war ended, more than 4,000 troops were to pass through the battalion.
Within days of arriving in France in February 1916 aboard a cattle boat, the 52nd moved to the front, and was thrust into battle at the Kemmel Sector in early March of that year. Over the next three years 140 officers and 2,819 other ranks were casualties in battles such as Mount Sorrel, Flers-Courcelette, Ancre Heights, Vimy Ridge, Avion, Hill 70, Passchendaele, Amiens, Damery, Scarpe, Drocourt-Queant, Canal du Nord, Cambrai, and Valenciennes. The survivors told stories of rat infested trenches, full of mud, of sleepless nights on ground sheets under single army blankets, and of ineffective rifles. One even recalled walking to the front without a helmet or gas mask, having been told to pick them up along the way from the casualties.
The Lake Superior’s (as they were affectionately known), had a reputation for independence and audacity; they would take a back seat for no one. Private W.C. Millar wrote of their encounter with the Imperial Grenadier Guards on a narrow road in the Ypres sector:
When seeing a bunch of trench-mud stained, unwashed Canadians coming along, the sergeant-major in charge of the Guards shouted out, in a voice which only an Imperial sergeant-major can assume, “Make way for the Guards, Make way for the Guards!!!”. Our lieutenant who, I have no doubt was seeing visions of a talk and possibly a bottle of champagne when we reached our billets, refused to be impressed, and made this characteristic reply: “To H–l with the Guards! Carry on, Fifty-second”. Needless to state the 52nd “carried on” and for once in their lives, the Guards took the side of the road for the Canadians.
The 52nd left France with 380 decorations, including a Victoria Cross won by Captain Christopher John Patrick O’Kelly at Passchendaele in 1917. Its battle honours were subsequently carried by Port Arthur’s Militia unit, the First Battalion, the Lake Superior Regiment.
Here’s where the 52nd Battalion sat in the heirarchy:
3rd Canadian Division
The 3rd Canadian Division joined the Canadian Corps in June 1916.
a.. 7th Brigade
a.. Royal Canadian Regiment
b.. Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry
c.. 42nd Battalion: Royal Highlanders of Canada
d.. 49th Battalion: Edmonton
a.. 8th Brigade
a.. 1st Canadian Mounted Rifles
b.. 2nd Canadian Mounted Rifles
c.. 4th Canadian Mounted Rifles
d.. 5th Canadian Mounted Rifles
a.. 9th Brigade
a.. 43rd Battalion: Cameron Highlanders
b.. 52nd Battalion: New Ontario Regiment
c.. 58th Battalion
d.. 116th Battalion: Ontario County Infantry
Grampa’s return from the war is interesting in that it lists what his position was. You can see his entry on the SS Olympic ship from Southampton to ____ (I’ll find it). He is listed as SPR, which is an acronym for a Sapper. Thanks to Wayne, I found out what a Sapper was.
I watched a movie once where the sappers were pushing bombs under the barbed wire with long poles attached to them with a string to fire it. Once they got the bomb under the barbed wire, they would pull the string and hope they blew up the barbed wire and not them selves. Some times the string would get hung up on something as they pushed it in and the bomb would go off and blow them up.
**Sap:the extension of a trench to a point beneath an enemy’s fortifications
Middle French /sapper/, from Old Italian /zappare/, from /zappa/ //”to make furrows with a hoe”
This is a link to a hoard of document Donna was able to get from …. somewhere …. regarding the 52nd Battalion which was Grampa Gallson’s Battalion (WWI). The order of them is not likely logical was Word exported the documents in alpha order. To be honest, I’m not sure what the first page would be.