Private Samuel Lulu (Service number K/15302) of Albreda was killed on active service on July 15, 1945.

Lulu was a member of the Royal Canadian Army Service Corps. He is buried in the Holten Canadian War Cemetery, Netherlands. The great majority of those buried in Holten Canadian War Cemetery died during the last stages of the war in Holland, during the advance of the Canadian 2nd Corps into northern Germany, and across the Ems in April and the first days of May 1945. After the end of hostilities the remains of over 1,300 Canadian soldiers were brought together into this cemetery.

Tom George Longstaff
Alpine Club Photo Library, London

Dr. Tom Longstaff
Canadian Alpine Journal, Vol. 48 (1965), p. 162

Describing “a distant high peak of which the side towards us was wrapped in snow,” Arthur Oliver Wheeler [1860–1945] wrote during the 1911 Alpine Club of Canada–Smithsonian Robson Expedition, “I named it Mount Longstaff after the well-known mountaineer and explorer, Dr. Tom G. Longstaff.”

Tom George Longstaff [1875–1964] was born in England. He was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford; and studied medicine at St. Thomas’ Hospital where he obtained his medical degree. He served in the British army in both World Wars. President of the <Alpine Club (UK), he climbed in practically all the major mountain ranges of the world — the Alps, Caucasus, Himalaya, Rockies, as well as in Selkirk, Greenland and Spitsbergen. He did not climb in the Mount Robson region.

Longstaff attended the 1910 Alpine Club of Canada camp at Consolation Valley, near Lake Louise. He attempted to climb Mount Assiniboine by a new route, which he climbed “by sheer mental effort. I used up all my credit balance of nervous energy and it took me two years to build it up again. It was the hardest climb I have ever done,” he wrote in This My Voyage. Longstaff later climbed in the Purcell Mountains with Arthur Wheeler, and in 1911, “captivated by the Western Mountains,” returned to climb in the Selkirks. “The trail was the freest form of travel I have known. There was no need for official permits; no pathways to oppose the whim of the moment; no tribes with different languages and customs to be humoured in a dozen ways; no dusty villages to be cajoled for supplies with infinite patience. My companions, packers and hunters, spoke the same language and we were all equal.”

Richard, Gordon, and Clifford Kimmel

The Kimmel brothers Richard (1914–44), Gordon (1916–44), and Clifford (1919-44) were killed serving in the Canadian Army during World War II. They were from Albreda.

Their father Harry Kimmel (1886–1972) left Illinois to settle in Canada in 1917. His wife Sylvia (ca. 1886–1961) and four Illinois-born children joined him in Edmonton the next year. Hearing of work at Swift Creek, Harry went there in 1918 and worked at Kennedy’s sawmill. He moved the family into a tiny house the next year, where Clifford, the sixth of twelve children, was born. In 1922 the family moved to a homestead at Albreda, where Harry worked on the coal deck that fueled the steam locomotives. Sylvia Kimmel was described as “the spirit of the pioneer, the kingpin of her family and jack of all trades and indeed master of most of them.” In 1961, the year she died, Sylvia represented Canadian mothers at the Remembrance Day services at Ottawa.

Richard, Gordon, and Clifford had a brother Harry Leonard Kimmel of Grand Forks, British Columbia.

Canadian Army L Sergeant Richard Kenneth Kimmel, K92118, killed in action 18 June 1944 during the Normandy landings. Buried at Beny-sur-Mer Canadian War Cemetery, Calvados, France.

Canadian Army Rifleman Gordon Leroy Kimmel, K53748, killed in action 8 June 1944 during the Normany landiongs. Buried at Bretteville-Sur-Laize Canadian War Cemetery, Calvados, France.

Canadian Army Corporal Clifford Howard Kimmel, K92117, killed in action 5 December 1944 during the Battle of Moro. Buried at Ravenna War Cemetery, Italy. Citations: 1939-45 Star, Italy Star, Defence Medal, Canadian Volunteer Service Medal and clasp, War Medal 1939-45.

Sergeant James Shannon Hammell
Canadian Virtual War Memorial

Named to remember Canadian Army Sergeant James Shannon Hammel, M15887, from Snowshoe. Serving with the Loyal Edmonton Regiment, he was killed in action in Sicily on 5 August 1943, age 41.

Sgt. Hammel is buried at Agira Canadian War Cemetery, Sicily, grave B, H, 248. At the time of his death, he was survived by wife Horah Mary Shannon-Hammel of Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, and by parents Isaiah and Isabella Hammel.

Trooper Frank Halvorson
Canadian Virtual War Memorial

Named to remember Trooper Frank Halvorson, H45935, from McBride; serving with the 27th Armoured Regiment, Sherbrook Fusiliers, RCAC, when he was killed in action 29 October 1944.

Frank Halvorson was son of John and Ann Halvorson, of McBride. He was born in Edmonton on November 24, 1918,and enlisted July 3, 1940, at Port Arthur, Ontario.

The Sherbrooke Fusiliers Regiment was formed as an infantry unit in 1940. In 1942 it was converted to an armoured regiment and renamed 27th Armoured Regiment (Sherbrooke Fusilier Regiment) and joined 4th Armoured Brigade. They later transferred to the 2nd Canadian Armoured Brigade and saw action in Normandy and across Western Europe.

Halvorson is buried at Bergen-op-Zoom Canadian War Cemetery, Netherlands, grave 8, D, 7. Most of the soldiers buried at Bergen-op-Zoom Canadian War Cemetery lost their lives in the fighting north of Antwerp during the Battle of the Scheldt, as the 2nd Canadian Infantry Division, with support from the 4th Canadian Armoured Division, worked to clear the right (north) bank of the Scheldt estuary of German forces. Bergen-op-Zoom Canadian War Cemetery contains 1,118 Commonwealth burials of the Second World War, 31 of which are unidentified.

Named to remember Canadian Army Private Earl William Goslin, M104002, from Tête Jaune Cache; serving with the Westminster Regiment, Royal Canadian Infantry Corps, when he was killed in action 16 December 1944; buried in the Villanova Canadian War Cemetery, Italy, grave V- A- 10.

Goslin was originally from the Cooking Lake area of Alberta. As of January 2001 he was survived by three sisters and a growing number of nieces and nephews and their progeny. He also may have had a daughter.