Born in Jedburgh, Scotland, in 1889, Balmer signed up on September 23, 1914, barely a month after the declaration of war on Germany. Thomas Sanderson Balmer was among the first cohort of Canadians to enlist in the Great War.

An electrician, Balmer was at the time engaged to Isabel Storey Hall. He already had two children, aged 3 and 2. He joined the Royal Canadian Horse Artillery and served with Number 1 Division until the end of the war in 1918. After the Armistice, he settled in Alberta.

Balmer’s granddaughter, Glenda Duguid, says she unfortunately has few memories of her grandfather. Now in her 60s, she was a young girl when her grandfather died in 1958. “I don’t know really much about my grandfather. It would be good for me to be able to read about other people who were in the same situation he was, and to have that information for future generations.”

Do you have an ancestor who served in the Great War? Submit their story and it could be included on this Great War Album website.