Brooker, Leonard Theodore

Leonard Theodore Brooker was born 27 May 1895 to William and Jessie Brooker in Niagara-on-the-Lake. His father was a farmer and, by the 1911 Census, Leonard had followed his father to work on the family farm.

Despite promises not to draft the sole help of farmers, Brooker was drafted into the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) on 14 May 1918 in Hamilton, his medical inspection having been done some six months earlier in St Catharine’s. He was inducted in to the Central Ontario Regiment and left Canada 3 June 1918 aboard SS Atreus arriving two weeks later in the United Kingdom. He was initially taken on strength in England by the 8th Reserve Battalion. Private Brooker would remain in the United Kingdom for the duration of the War. By March 1919 he was assigned to F Wing of the Canadian Construction Corps. On 23 June 1919 he was shipped back to Canada aboard Mauritania and demobilized in Toronto 6 July 1919.

He returned to the family farm and in December 1920 married Emma Morgan and returned to live with his wife and family on the farm. By 1935 the Voters’ List shows him living with his wife in Niagara-on-the-Lake and working as a labourer. That year the couple had a child who died of dysentery.

He died 8 June 1956 and is buried in St Mark’s Anglican Cemetery at Niagara-on-the-Lake.